Is it worth salvaging flooring?

[sherryhere]

Hi everyone,
I would like to get some opinions on whether it would be worthwhile, from an economic viewpoint, to salvage some wood flooring.  Here's the situation in a nutshell:  I have a contact at a real estate development company which will soon be demolishing a house that was built around 1910-1920.  There are probably a couple thousand SF of wood flooring in it,  I don't know what kind of wood it is, might even just be pine, but I'm not sure.  I think it would be such a waste to have the flooring end up in a dumpster, but as a not very handy 64 yr. woman, I would have to pay some labor to have it removed.  The best estimate I can make from Ebay sales is that used wood flooring might go for like $2 SF.  But I have no idea what kind of man hours would be involved in removing it, so I wonder if it would even be worth doing it.  Does anyone out there have any experience with salvaging wood flooring, and know the degree of difficulty in doing it?  Would anyone care to weigh in on the feasability of doing this?

[UK4X4]

used old wood almosts costs as much as new in the UK.

I re-did my old house floor with reclaimed timber, you just can't reproduce that wear and tear using paint or stain, the quality of the wood tends to be better too.

being that old its probably just planks, rather than T&G, at least mine was and it was built in 1900, usually installed with Cut nails, some pull out easy, others you'll find are rusted in place and pull through the boards when lifted

Once you get a few lifted and your working across a room it goes quite fast.

Recon on a days labor to lift them all

[MushCreek]

Here in SC, old flooring costs MORE than new. I wish I could find old flooring for $2 a square foot. It can be removed, of course. There is probably a lot of loss with splitting, etc, depending upon how it is fastened. I'd be interested in buying and removing that flooring if it was close enough to SC.

[rick91351]

First off  from Idaho

Second I would take a good look at it before diving off the rocks into such a project.  I have done some hardwood.  I am not a professional in anyway shape or form.  But a couple of the projects looked good that I worked on and helped others with.  As far as the demo.  If it were easy and cheap you would have people lined up to do it.  Companies would be formed to remove hard wood flooring and trim.  At least around here they are not.  Man hours involved in salvage then handling and storage then reinstalling compared to a new product are weird.  If you are using new you know what you are getting.  Used if I were an installer there is no way I would bid a job with used flooring unless it was understood it is going to take a lot more material than new.  I would not be surprised in a 2000 sq ft home using the used you might not need to have another 30 to 50% available depending on how tore up the product is.  I would also bid double on labor so any savings on using old is shot right there.

Next how well was the house taken care of would tell you a lot about the floor?  If it was a meth lab you might not even be able legally remove or use such without testing and the house have a clean bill of health from the EPA.  You say it might even been a pine floor.  Some species so I understand held up well as such.  Locally have never seen it stand the test of time.  I know one high end home built ten years ago up here it is working very well.  But it have not had a bunch of different home owners and such.  So going back 100 years.  Might have been anything from vertical grain fir - to maple or oak would be more common.   It would be a lot better wood than what is a available today.

I am going to take the other side as far as plank and T&G from UK4X4.  I would guess the tongue and groove side.  They are sort of a pain to remove.  No let me rephrase that they are not sort of a pain to take up they are a real pain to take up with out breaking the tongue.  It would take a lot of time to take up a floor properly if Tongue and Groved.  So if time is money and is an issue.  No way would I touch it.

[MountainDon]

FWIW, my parents house was built in the first decade of the 1900's. It had beautiful maple hardwood T&G floors throughout.   We never removed any of it though.

[Erin]

It is indeed a time-consuming process but can be SOOO worth it.  Thirty years ago, my dad installed the flooring in the cabin he'd just built.  He got it  from the one-room country school he'd attended til the 8th grade    It still looks great.
Whether it's worth YOUR time, on the other hand, is another question entirely. 

You might consider running an ad in the local classifieds, much like people who "sell" the rights to a barn tear-down. 

[Patrick]

I removed all of the tongue and groove flooring on our main level it was mixed oak in some rooms and fir in others the fir basically splinters apart and the oak is not much better. then you still need to remove hundreds of nails if you get them up without breaking  and another thing to consider if they have ever been sanded that brings the tongue and groove closer to the surface which can create some issues re-installing and they will likely need to be resanded once installed to get them smooth again, that is preferance of course. unfinished white oak lumber liquidators 3 bucks sq ft.

[Don_P]

Narrow strip flooring, no way I'd bother. We took up some 1920's wide T&G a few weeks ago. It was 7/8" thick x 6" T&G red oak. We didn't try to preserve the T&G but were after the boards for machining down to 3/4" thick. The joists were chestnut so we salvaged them as well. In that situation it was worth it, there was plenty of thickness for remachining. I've done this on a random width wide poplar floor as well and used the boards for wainscot, ceiling and trim. But if you are hiring it out thinking you will be saving money, there is no way.