Nail puller?

[Rich Lester]

Had the same issue several years ago when we did our kitchen addition. Needed to pull up the particle board underlayment in the existing kitchen and family room. Broke out the shingle removing shovel and it worked like a charm. Just shove it under the particle board and pry it up. The shovel spreads out the bearing surface to prevent break through of the sub-floor. You may get some tear out on the half inch ply but you'll be covering that over anyway. My shingle shovel is an Ames brand but I would guess any shingle shovel would work.

[Bryan Rocker]

I would get a sawsall blade out and cut the nails off or a hand held grinder and cut the nails off close then beat them flush and go on.......For some reason my house has particle board under it to.....my house was built in 1961.......

[Chris Parks]

This is a nail driver, a friend of mine has one and swears by it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJOeJ-c3RAs

It will push the nails right through the pineboard, they show doing that at the end.

[Mike Berrevoets]

Why not just rip the particle board and hammer the nails in

The brute force method? Yea, that's always my first reaction but it doesn't work in this case like I think/thought it would. It just breaks the particle board in little pieces leaving the nails sitting on top of a mound so I still need to pull the nails.

[Mike Berrevoets]

I went to menards and Home Depot this morning buying options. Bought a slide hammer nail puller from menards. Didn't work very well. Worked sometimes but not often enough. I think the particle board was too dense for it to get a good bite.

What worked best was an estwing cats paw in the longest version I could find. It had a cats paw on both ends which was handy for nails against the wall.

[Mike Berrevoets]

Had the same issue several years ago when we did our kitchen addition. Needed to pull up the particle board underlayment in the existing kitchen and family room. Broke out the shingle removing shovel and it worked like a charm. Just shove it under the particle board and pry it up. The shovel spreads out the bearing surface to prevent break through of the sub-floor. You may get some tear out on the half inch ply but you'll be covering that over anyway. My shingle shovel is an Ames brand but I would guess any shingle shovel would work.

Ill give that a try for the next room in a few weeks. I'll tell ya, those ring shank nails have some pretty good holding power. Even with the heads broke off they still had some holding power.

Just curious, what year is your house? My contractor buddy has done lots of demo on old houses and mine is the only one he has ever seen with particle board. I don't get it because it doesn't provide much structural strength. the floors squeak so much it was the first thing I noticed when we toured the house before buying. My neighbors have the same thing except for the one that had his house built for him. The rest are "spec" houses. My guess was it was cheap to do and code allowed it so they ran with it.

[Jason Roehl]

http://www.amazon.com/BOSTITCH-55-50...ds=cat%27s+paw

or

http://www.amazon.com/Crescent-56-Na...er+nail+puller

I've used the former quite a bit for pulling particle board underlayment. You hammer the bent-foot portion under the nail head and pry it up. It's MUCH easier to remove all the nails first than to try to pull up particle (sawdust) board. I've used the second item a bit, too, and it also works well.

[Rich Lester]

Ill give that a try for the next room in a few weeks. I'll tell ya, those ring shank nails have some pretty good holding power. Even with the heads broke off they still had some holding power.

Just curious, what year is your house? My contractor buddy has done lots of demo on old houses and mine is the only one he has ever seen with particle board. I don't get it because it doesn't provide much structural strength. the floors squeak so much it was the first thing I noticed when we toured the house before buying. My neighbors have the same thing except for the one that had his house built for him. The rest are "spec" houses. My guess was it was cheap to do and code allowed it so they ran with it.

My house was built in 1969. Every single room had particle board on top of 1/2" ply, only one room to go ripping it out. Was told by a neighbor that my house was the "Model Home" for the development. Can't believe they sold many houses with all of what I would call shortcuts that have come up during our time here. Replaced the particle board in the bathrooms with cement board and tile, in the bed rooms used a second layer of 3/4 t & g ply ran the opposite direction of the 1/2" and screwed down then had carpet installed. In the kitchen addition, old kitchen and family room 1/2" ply ran opposite and installed laminate.

By the way, I still had to go back and pull some nails with a nail puller but most came out with the shingle shovel. Take your time when prying it up that helps, pry it up a little then slide the shovel in more and pry a little more. at some point the particle board will break then you gotta start all over.

[BOB OLINGER]

I suggest what we call a crow's foot nail puller. Sorry, don't have a picture, but they should be available at your hardware or borg. You can sharpen the 2 teeth, drive the claws under the nail head with you hammer, then pull them out. The only challenge might be if the nail heads pop off given they're ring shank.

[roger wiegand]

I'd pound them in if they are too hard to pull out.