DIY laminate flooring - floorboard stuck!

greensalad

So today we began ripping up old laminate flooring to replace with new. Came up lovely and easy EXCEPT for a small area with a few boards which seemed to be stuck...

There was previously a doorway in a slightly different location in the room. This would have been the original exterior back wall. The room we are working on is an extension. The door has been covered over with plasterboard and a new door inserted to the right of it.

We found that the boards in this area with plasterboard appear to be very deep under the wall, to the edge of the internal part of the old house if that makes sense. I guess they put the plasterboard wall over the flooring. We were able to pull out these boards eventually and found that they were under the wall a full 25cm or so. 

They were hard to pull out, but alas we could not pull out the last one! It appears to be firmly stuck under the wall.





I thought maybe we could somehow cut it out but no idea what tool is best and also we need to get the piece under the architrave out so we can replace it with our new floor.

molerat

Just push it to the left and right and lever it out rather than just pulling..

Forwandert

I would attempt to take the architrave off first just incase the board snaps when trying to prise out as you would really struggle to get any other pieces out from under the architrave or wall. If you still couldn't get it out I'd use a mulitool to cut as far under as possible. 

Bendy_House

Doesn't it prise out if you 'lever' it from side to side? Ie, grab the end of the board that's away from the wall, and move it left and right whilst still flat on the floor, building up the 'arc' movement - I'd have thought that would ease it out?

Or, as t'Mole says, use a piece of timber - or another bit of board - held against that board's edge close to the wall, and hammer it sideways.

greensalad

molerat said:

Just push it to the left and right and lever it out rather than just pulling..

Tried that, it's how the other boards came out. But this one won't budge. 

greensalad

Bendy_House said:

Doesn't it prise out if you 'lever' it from side to side? Ie, grab the end of the board that's away from the wall, and move it left and right whilst still flat on the floor, building up the 'arc' movement - I'd have thought that would ease it out?

Or, as t'Mole says, use a piece of timber - or another bit of board - held against that board's edge close to the wall, and hammer it sideways.

Nope, no movement. The other boards we had just enough wiggle to do this side to side and get it out. The board next to it took my partner a good 5 minutes of just shimmying it side to side to eventually get it free. This one just won't seem to budge.

greensalad

Forwandert said:

I would attempt to take the architrave off first just incase the board snaps when trying to prise out as you would really struggle to get any other pieces out from under the architrave or wall. If you still couldn't get it out I'd use a mulitool to cut as far under as possible. 

We weren't planning to take off the door architrave if possible Might have to try a multitool.

GDB2222

Will your new floor be thicker? If so cut the bottom of the architrave a couple of mm.

greensalad

GDB2222 said:

Will your new floor be thicker? If so cut the bottom of the architrave a couple of mm.

No it's about the same. And I'm not sure that would work, I don't think it's stuck under the architrave. It's stuck on something about 25cm back from the architrave, right at the edge of the other side of the wall.

Bendy_House

A timber batten against the door-side of the board, close to the wall. Repeated leftwards slugs from a club hammer. 
It WILL come away, either by breaking the bond that's holding it, or - if there's a nail or screw going through under there - from the board actually splitting from that nail

I doubt very much that any damage will be caused to anything else.
Check - the rest of that board DOES lift? It ain't glued down to the floor, is it?!

Martin_the_Unjust

Bendy_House said:

A timber batten against the door-side of the board, close to the wall. Repeated leftwards slugs from a club hammer. 
It WILL come away, either by breaking the bond that's holding it, or - if there's a nail or screw going through under there - from the board actually splitting from that nail

I doubt very much that any damage will be caused to anything else.
Check - the rest of that board DOES lift? It ain't glued down to the floor, is it?!

This will work (hopefully) 

(if brute force doesn’t work, you are not using enough of it)