Quick question, I have a job coming up in the next few days and its a big one. Its about 1600 sf total, its .5 in glued down engineered maple. 8 months ago it was installed, and its all gotta come up now due to a pretty big water leak.

Anyways, back to my question, whats the best way to pull this up. I know some of you old timers must have some tricks up your sleeve. Will a rotor hammer work with a 6 in blade(thin-set remover) or am i basically gonna have to cut this up in 4 in squares and use breakout bars to get the wood up then scrape the glue with a razor.

All the old timers around these parts say i just need to throw a bunch of labor at it to get it up.

Any info on any homemade devices or store bought machines would be appreciated.

That's how I do it.

Circular saw set to depth. Make cuts across the boards in 4-6" intervals

I use my Bosch hammer drill/jack hammer, on the hammer setting, and a 2" paddle SDS bit.

Then my razor scraper.

My last one, I took up 260 sq.ft. and had it prepped for new flooring in less then 6 hours.

I took up a 15 yr old engineered floor over a plywood subfloor that was glued down for $2/sf. I swore the next one I was doubling my price. If it is over concrete that would be a different story. There would be something to scrape it off of. I hope that is your case.

I found that the wood would come apart and leave the bottom portion where the adhesive was applied. I thing in the end I might have elected to leave that potion and smooth out the rest of the floor over that.