Hey all… Pulled up carpet to discover hardwood floors underneath. Structure is sounds, but carpet pad is thin and STUCK!!! Started scraping and in 1 day got about a 5 foot radius cleared off. Anybody know any tricks to scraping 25 year old 1/8 inch thick padding off a floor??? Any help would be appreciated by me and my arms.
Jared
Ummm!! Let me think what would I do? Hold on I will call my flooring guy! See what he say’s! I will play WHO WANT’S TO BE A MILLIONAIRE!!And This is where I need to use a life line!
Thanks Regis… your a lifesaver.
I will let you play along!!
DID FLOOR GUY SAY?
A. There is nothing you can do!!
B. Keep Scraping! And you should be done by 2007
C. Any HOME DEPOT will sell a varnish remover that will also remove the pad it will make a mess but it is easier to scrape after that sand the floors with a floor sander then re stain them, It is a long process but when it is done they will look awesome!
or
D. bring in a bulldozer and knock the house down after that build a new house with new hardwood and you will not need to worry about the old floor
???
I choose D and yes that is my final, no wait B yesthats… no C I don’t know.
John
At least your not being arrogant Robb… thank you so much for your help and God bless you.
Am I usually arrogant? Never mind Do not answer that!! LOL
By the way the answer was either C or B you could scrape and scrape if you really wanted to!!
Hey,
Water often makes the glue let go. I had similar situation and we used wet towels. Soak them and let them sit on the floor until the moisture soaks down to the glue. Makes a mess and the glue really fumed up my house this way, but it worked better than anything else I tried.
DB
Thanks DB! Will try that on a small space and see what happens. Thanks for everybody’s input.
If the floors need sanding (and it sounds as if it does), I would get a tool called “The Mutt” (it looks like an ice chopper with a long handle) and use it to get up the big chunks. Then I’d let the sander get the rest…trust me, it will eat the pad up real quick!
PS - wear a mask…carpet pads have “cooties”!
Keith
Regarding the flooring: I am fixing up my home now and may be selling within the year.
What is the best flooring? Laminate, tile or tile? I had carpet in the bedrooms and it is shot
Are lighter or darker colors IN?
Its a win situation if you do tile they will want carpet if you do carpet they will want tile if you do dark they will want light if you do light they will want dark!!
I say just do cheap!!
BlueStarHomesInc,
I would go to your local rental store and rent a electric walk behind floor scraper, they have a choice between concrete or wood blades. Of course get your wood blade and try that, it should peel the carpet right up, if the glue is still there you can then rent a electric walk behind floor sander and sand until the glue is gone. The sander will heat up the glue and it will stick to the sand paper so get plenty of sand paper.
That’s what I would do because I’m lazy and I’m not gonna set there and scrape for days. Let the machines work hard not you!!!
Good luck,
John
Okay, so here is what we did. I ended up going to Lowes and picking up a couple of heavy duty scrapers with long handles. Took a few days but have almost all of the chunks of glue off. It was tough, but totally worth it. These floors are going to be awesome. Thank you for everybody’s input.
Jared 