What are the Different Types of Flooring Tools?

Floors can be made of or covered with a wide range of materials, including stone, wood, vinyl, linoleum, carpeting, and tile. Flooring tools are tools that are used to install, remove, repair, and refurbish floors. Because floors can be made of such a range of materials, and the tools are used for a collection of quite different tasks, there are a number of quite different tools that fall into this category.

Flooring staplers and nailers are flooring tools of which there are many, many varieties. Flooring staplers are made to drive staples to the proper depth for the installation of tongue and groove hardwood flooring. Flooring nailers are also flooring tools made for tongue and groove flooring. Some flooring nailers can also be adapted for use with decorative wall paneling, and some floor nailers are referred to as “cleat nailers.” Various designs of each tool are available to work with different depths of flooring, and accessories include a flooring shoe for positioning nails correctly.

A TrackSaw kit makes it easy to trim hardwood flooring, panel systems, and floating floors. Models are available with multiple track lengths and multiple speeds. Accessories include vacuum attachments, T-square attachments, a miter gauge, and a track connector. The standard blade may also be replaceable with a fine finish blade.

If it’s vinyl you’re working with, then several different types of flooring tools can help you trim vinyl to size. One is a pair of vinyl-cutting snips—which may also work on carpet—may be handy. The kind that offer replacement blades may prove a good choice for the long run. Vinyl and carpeting can both be cut with a cordless power cutter.

If you’re taking a floor apart, a multipurpose flat bar may prove a useful flooring tool. It can pry up nails and staples, and some come with a bottle opener. Spiral saws are multi-use flooring tools. They can be used to create cut-outs in flooring for vents or outlets, cut through grout when removing tiles, or remove a regularly-shaped portion of tile for replacement. It cuts hardwood, tile, plywood, underlayment, and cement board, and may come with a right-angle attachment.

Framing hammers, whether straight claw or rip claw, can be useful for removing old flooring. They can pry up boards, remove nails, and—as their name suggests—are useful in framing. A multi-use oscillating tool with multiple attachments, sometimes sold as a detail sander, can be useful for removing old floor covering or cutting up laminated or parquet floors.

A tile grouter’s float is a flooring tool made for spreading the grout around tiles, while a grout removal kit helps take it out. A long screw gun can make putting in sub-flooring a stand-up job, while a clutch screwdriver doesn’t allow standing, but does secure flooring. A screw-shooter system is another option for securing flooring with screws.