Cutting wooden floors

[Aiyub]

I will be laying air condition beneath floorboards soon. I will need to buy a saw to cut the floorboards. Would appreciate help from members on the best saw for the task. I presume a circular saw is best, also which is the best way to do it.
Thank you

 

[Scoby_Beasley]

You can get a hand saw to cut through floor board joints, has teeth round a curved end and straight on the reverse side. Would not use a circular (powered) saw because of pipe noggins (cut-outs), power cables etc. etc. You potentialy won't hear when the saw hits something you don't want it to.

 

[breezer]

i have an idea, suppose you lift a board, measure its depth, and set a circular saw to cut 0.5mm above this

 

[MANDATE]

Breezer has the answer
There is however a problem of 'kickback' when making that intial plunge cut and a fast rotating saw can be dangerous.
What I do, after ensuring there are no nails (extract if need be) is to position the saw face plate against a piece of 2 by 1 batten screwed to the floor, hold the rotating saw so the face plate is about 30 degrees and slowly lower the front of the saw, this prevents the kickbackon that initial plunge.
To make the task easy, you also need a good nail extractor (costs about £30 / £40 but worth it )

 

[ChrisR]

Use a wire/stud finder intended for walls - but they won't detect plastic pipe!
Leaving the last fraction of wood works. You can then cut through it with a "Stanley" knife with the depth set.

You don't need the batten if you take the riving knife off the saw. A VERY light weight saw is easiest to hold against kick-back, mine is 5 1/4 " (135mm).

Make your cuts in the middle of joists so there's something for the ends of the boards to sit back on.