How to Remove Stripped Screws

In this video, Ask This Old House general contractor Tom Silva shares some tricks of the trade for backing out stripped screws.

For rusted screws that won’t budge, try applying a penetrating solvent such as Liquid Wrench to loosen the corrosion, then give the screw a solid rap with a hammer and nail set. The shock usually loosens the screw just enough to get it moving. Be careful not to place the nail set’s tip directly in the screw slot, though—if you damage the slot, you’ll have an even tougher time removing the screw.

Pro Tip: Norm Abram, This Old House master carpenter, advises reserving power drivers for the right situations: “There are some jobs—and some screws—for which I always use a hand screwdriver, never a power drill/driver.” He notes that soft brass and aluminum screws fare better when turned by hand, as do slotted screws of any kind: “A slotted bit in a drill is virtually guaranteed to slip off.” Choosing the right tool from the start can help you avoid stripping screws in the first place.

Steps:

1. Try removing the stripped screw with the proper size manual screwdriver.

2. If the screw head is protruding from the surface, grip it with self-locking pliers and twist out the screw.

3. Use a cordless drill—set in reverse—and left-handed bit to drill a small hole into the head of the stripped screw.

4. With the drill still set in reverse, use a screw extractor to back out the screw.

5. If the screw head has snapped off, use a hollow-boring screw extractor to drill out the entire screw. Fill the resulting hole with a tapered wood plug.

Pro Tip: Before reaching for a screw extractor, try this approach from This Old House Magazine: Switch from your drill/driver to a manual screwdriver with a tip that matches the screw type, and use a hammer to gently tap the tip into the damaged head to set it. Then, using as much downward force as you can muster, slowly back out the screw.

Tools