Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
I've never heard of a machine to remove the carpet though I used an ice
scraper to get hte padding up. Your way sounds easier.
I had never heard of that either but the woman said she had used it on
hers and it really did the trick. I saw the machine and it had a big
blade in the front. She said it works really well. The name of the
machine wasn't Eddy but the company apparently was. I didn't catch
the spelling and haven't been able to find it online due to this.
Once I have it, I will be sure to relay the info about it and most
importantly, if it works. She swore by it and it didn't seem that she
was just faking it to sell the rental to us.
Malcolm Hoar wrote:
1. I don't know about that machine but you definitely need to
pull up the old carpet.
2. Then you'll really see what horrors are lurking beneath. If
the floor is really bad, you may need to nail down some
fiberboard sheets to create a clean new surface. You don't
need "perfect" but the floor does need to be reasonably
flat and even.
Hmmm I hope the floors turn out to be pretty flat.
3. Install whatever underlay/foam the laminate floor
manufacturer recommends. You can kiss goodbye to any
warranties on the floor if you fail to do so.
Sounds right. I will be sure to read before attempting any of this.
4. You might consider installing an existing moisture
barrier under or with the underlay if you think there's
any significant chance of moisture working up through
that floor.
The woman did say that the other foam we needed was indeed a vapor
barrier type, as she had asked if this was in a basement. While the
carpet down there is VERY flat and has no under padding we had thought
we could get away without tearing up the carpet. In this case, we've
already spent a couple hundred to tear down a wall, put up a new one,
remove the panelling, put up drywall, re-route the wiring/lighting and
remove the baseboard heaters. After reading posts here, I think that if
we're going to the trouble to do all of this, I figure that we might
as well do it right and remove the carpet. I'd hate to see it pop
apart after a year or two, forcing us to redo it properly.
Thanks for everyone's opinions
