Floor removal & demo in Garland, TX

Usually it is an advantage. The pre-1950 stock around the downtown square and Travis College Hill sits over a crawlspace with plank subfloor, so squeaks, soft spots, and sag can be fixed from below instead of by tearing out the room. Original oak strip is often thick enough to sand and refinish, and where the planks are rough we overlay plywood and lay new goods on a flat, sound deck.

Worth checking, not worth panicking over. Most of Garland was built between the 1950s and the 1980s, and nine-inch resilient tile with black cutback mastic from before the late 1970s often contains asbestos. We test rather than assume, and we never sand, grind, or dry-scrape suspect material. Intact tile can frequently stay put and be covered with a floating floor, which is cheaper and safer than removal.

Because they are effectively two different jobs. The post-2005 homes near Firewheel Town Center are open-plan on a young post-tension slab with builder porcelain and carpet. The Duck Creek and Embree streets are 1950s and 1960s, smaller rooms, early slab or pier-and-beam, and often layered old flooring underneath. Same city, thirty to fifty years apart, and the prep is where the difference lands.

Occasionally. A floating floor can go over sound, fully bonded tile in some situations. What stops it more often is height. Every inch you add changes door swings, thresholds, the transition into adjoining rooms, the clearance under a dishwasher and the fit of a refrigerator into its opening. You also inherit whatever is wrong with the old floor, flatness and cracks included.

With containment set up properly, most families stay. We build plastic barriers at the openings, seal the registers and returns in the work zone so nothing travels through the ductwork, and grind with vacuum attached at the tool. Expect noise, and expect the work zone off limits during the day. Demolition done without any of that is what people mean when the dust never seems to end.

It might be, and it should be tested rather than guessed at. Nine-inch tile and black cutback adhesive were both common then, and either can contain asbestos. Intact and covered, they are not a hazard. The risk comes from grinding or sanding them dry. We sample and test before anything is disturbed, and a positive result goes to a licensed abatement firm before we return to prep and install.