What tools you need greatly depend on the method of putting down the flooring, and how the old stuff was put down.
You'll probably need a good pry bar to efficiently lift up the old stuff. Yes, the claw end of a hammer will work, but will be much more effort. If it was glued down, then you may need to sand, scrape, or otherwise treat the sub-floor when you're done, to make it smooth.
There's also a big question of putting down a new sub-floor if, for example, you want to increase the sound-proofing or deal with a sloped or warped floor. I'll ignore that for now.
I'll assume that the flooring you put back down will be modern tongue and groove stuff, in which case you'll probably want a rubber mallet to help bang boards into place (although you never hit the boards you're placing. Use a junk piece of board placed against the stuff you're putting down, and hit it.)
The flooring may be nailless in which case it locks when banged together, or you may have to nail down the strips at regular intervals by carefully putting a headless nail into the exposed tongue of a board, before sliding the next over it. This can be finicky and tedious work and is MUCH faster and tidier with a nail gun. It won't be worth buying one for a single job though, so you'd want to rent one for the job.
My best advice though is:
1) Go and find the flooring you want, and see what system is used to put it down. They often have lists of needed tools on the packaging, and they almost invariably have a list of full instructions inside. You can also ask the sales staff which brands are easiest to lay for do-it-yourself jobs and which tools they recommend (although the reliability of their answers will vary depending on staff and location).
2) Check to see if you local big-box reno store (reno depot, home hardware, hogg, rona, etc) has free classes on laying floors. Often they do.
3) The BNAQ has lots of good do-it-yourself books that you may want to peruse to familiarize yourself with the entire process ahead of time.
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Date: 2008-04-21 07:31 pm (UTC)You'll probably need a good pry bar to efficiently lift up the old stuff. Yes, the claw end of a hammer will work, but will be much more effort. If it was glued down, then you may need to sand, scrape, or otherwise treat the sub-floor when you're done, to make it smooth.
There's also a big question of putting down a new sub-floor if, for example, you want to increase the sound-proofing or deal with a sloped or warped floor. I'll ignore that for now.
I'll assume that the flooring you put back down will be modern tongue and groove stuff, in which case you'll probably want a rubber mallet to help bang boards into place (although you never hit the boards you're placing. Use a junk piece of board placed against the stuff you're putting down, and hit it.)
The flooring may be nailless in which case it locks when banged together, or you may have to nail down the strips at regular intervals by carefully putting a headless nail into the exposed tongue of a board, before sliding the next over it. This can be finicky and tedious work and is MUCH faster and tidier with a nail gun. It won't be worth buying one for a single job though, so you'd want to rent one for the job.
My best advice though is:
1) Go and find the flooring you want, and see what system is used to put it down. They often have lists of needed tools on the packaging, and they almost invariably have a list of full instructions inside. You can also ask the sales staff which brands are easiest to lay for do-it-yourself jobs and which tools they recommend (although the reliability of their answers will vary depending on staff and location).
2) Check to see if you local big-box reno store (reno depot, home hardware, hogg, rona, etc) has free classes on laying floors. Often they do.
3) The BNAQ has lots of good do-it-yourself books that you may want to peruse to familiarize yourself with the entire process ahead of time.