Installing Wood Flooring: How to Cut around a Pipe

Installing wood flooring is a task that varies in difficulty. Installing a wood flooring system can be tricky when you're dealing with water or oil heat. When you have either of these heating sources you'll also have pipe running between each floor. These pipes will make installing wood flooring more of a chore. The information contained below will show you how to cut around or work with the pipe.

Step 1 – Measure the Pipe

Before installing wood flooring you'll need to know how big the pipes are that you have to work around. You can look at the pipes and guess the overall diameter but a wrong move here can cause a lot of waste later on. Look at the pipe as a very small waste. Use the tailor’s tape measure and wrap it around each pipe and write down the number. Do this for each pipe in the wall regardless of the location. You do not need an exact match but you do not one that is very close and only a fraction larger than the actual pipe. Once the numbers are found make sure that you record them.

Step 2 – Removable or Stationary

It is important to know if the pipes can be removed from the wall at a section or not. This will make installing wood flooring easy when compared to installing wood flooring around pipes that are stationary. Find the pipes you need to work around and look for anything not smooth like a bolt or nut. This indicates several pipes instead of one larger pipe. Use a wrench to loosen the bolt. Once the bolt is loosened the section of pipe will be able to be lifted up and out. A stationary pipe is harder to work with and will be covered later.

Step 3 – Cutting the Wood if the Pipes can be Moved

This is probably the simplest way to cut the wood around pipes. Installing wood floors is hard enough without dealing with pipes. When the pipe can be taken out you simply have to use the measurement you took previously and find a hole saw slightly larger. Drill the hole out where you need it and then simply slide the wood piece over the pipe.

Step 4 – Cutting the Wood for Stationary Pipes

This is trickier and not very nice to look at when you are finished. Use the hole bit as you did in Step 3 but now you also have to cut out a track so that the wood can slide in place. Use a saw and remove the small piece of wood in front of the hole. The cut has to be very straight and it should look like one oblong hole. Keep this cut piece off to the side. Slide the board in place and put the cut piece behind the pipe. It will lock up against the board. Affix the small piece and the large board and it will barely be noticeable.