4788 galley floor removal

[Fully]

Hi
Has anyone removed their galley floor? If so, how did you do it? We want to replace the floor with luxury vinyl, but the option of laying down LV on top of the existing oak is not possible due to clearance issues with the drawer under the refrigerator and the compactor. Any and all advice deeply appreciated. Thanks.

[ksanders]

it looks like teak and holly plywood to me, should be pretty easy to pull the trim. The question is how far inder the compactor, stove does it go???

[higgins_jr]

As an alternative to pulling trim, on the floor of the LH section of the sink cupboard behind the “TV” section, there is a small hatch over the fuel tank sender unit. You may be able to get an idea of thickness etc there. I have a feeling the galley cupboards sit on top of the teak floor, so you may be in for a bigger issue to remove, not to mention floor levels. The whole salon has 3/4” plywood as the floor across the floor joists. On top of that there is carpet and underlay making up another 3/4”. The carpet is level with the galley floor, so regular 3/4” teak flooring would be my guess vs a veneer ply. Let us know what you find. Hope this assists.

Cheers

[Fully]

It’s an honor to have the two of you respond to my question and sharing your insight, thank you. I pried the trim up and it appears to be 3/4” oak as my 96 4788 has the light wood interior. Removal of those 1 1/4” wide planks looks to be a major undertaking and I’ve no clue how they are fastened to the underlayment. After some noodling it seems the biggest obstacle in laying Luxury vinyl over the old floor is the tiny clearance between the existing floor and the bottom of the drawer under the fridge. When open the compactor clears the floor by 1/2”and sits about 1/2” below the counter top so I think clearance wouldn’t be an issue even if it has to be removed at some point. I’m now thinking the answer might be to remove the below the fridge drawer, using a table saw, cut 5/8-3/4” off the bottom of the drawer box and install a new bottom to fit the inside dimensions effectively reducing the drawers top to bottom dimension by 5/8”-3/4” which upon reinstalling the drawer using the same slides in their original position would result in the drawer clearing the new floor. My pal with the appropriate tools suggested I may be able to salvage the original drawer bottom and reinstall in within the shortened drawer box. We shall see come mid May when we get back on the boat.

[Destiny_4588]

We replaced the factory teak n holly panel with a dark bamboo product years ago, it work well, use a multi Tool tool to cut it out as in our case it went under the cabinets.

[Woodsea]

We laid Lonseal over the galley floor and in the salon. We extended the Lonseal under the trash compactor and drawer under the refrigerator. It probably extends 2” underneath. Removed the trash compactor slide out and the drawer for install. The trash compactor sweep rubs against the floor but not enough to impede.

[katricol]

I just removed my galley floor, it was just regular 3/4" oak glued down heavy with silicone. I took a circular saw set at 3/4' and scored the floor into small strips. I then used a flat bar and hammer to remove all I could except in front of fridge, compactor, etc. Take the door off under the fridge, just two screws inside drawer and lift up the skirt on the compactor. Use a multitool to cut the remaining flooring out. It was actually harder to get all the silicone up off the plywood

[Fully]

Thank you all for the input and sharing your experiences. I’m leaning toward luxury vinyl planks or the Lonseal type vinyl sheeting Woodsea did both would be over the top of the existing oak. My floors intact, a bit worn and we simply don’t like the blonde oak. I’ll update my work with some photos once we get back to PNW in mid May. In the meantime she’s at Seaview for bottom paint and a hull wax. I wish you all the best this season.
Fully
1996 4788
Paradigm Shift

[joe440]

I installed vinyl planks over top of the existing floor. No problems with the garbage compactor rolling in and out. I don’t have a drawer under the fridge so I can’t comment on that.

[tom]

we did our vinyl over the existing floor also on our 47. no issues.

[Woodsea]

Here is how ours turned out laid over existing stock floor.

[Destiny_4588]

that looks amazing!

[ksanders]

Here is how ours turned out laid over existing stock floor.

Very nice!!! what did you do around the zillion harches?

Did you remove the sofa?

[Woodsea]

I used 1/4” x 1” teak that I ripped on a small table saw from a 1” thick board. I then did two coats of a heavy duty clear floor urethane on three sides. The raw side got epoxied and pin nailed to both sides of the hatch edges. The edges are slightly proud of the Lonseal edges. It has held up very well since 2016. You can see in the photo the galley floor sits about 1/2” higher and is trimmed in teak. I like that it delineates the galley from the salon.
I did not remove the sofa. In hindsight, it would have made the job easier. I did pull up the carpet that was run underneath and painted the floor of the storage areas under the settee.

[Fully]

As I mentioned our 96 4788 has a drawer below the fridge. The drawer is about 9” deep and moves in and out via drawer slides mounted at the top of the drawer sides. The clearance between the drawer bottom OEM floor was about 1/8” which prevented installing any floor over the existing 3/4 oak. I decided to remove the drawer and used my multi tool to cut the drawer sides at the level of the inside mounted 1/2” plywood drawer bottom. Once I had the bottom cut I pried remaining the 1/2” of drawer sides off the bottom and replaced it back into the the shortened drawer box and used 1 1/4” #6 screws to secure it