We bought a house with a carpet on the concrete patio slab. The carpet was
in such bad shape that we had to tear it off the slab, but that left a lot
of ugly adhesive which we would like to remove.

How do we remove that adhesive without damaging the slab?

All help will be very greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Jim D writes:

How do we remove that adhesive without damaging the slab?

Basically a messy job of removing a type a paint. A methylene chloride
chemical stripper works best.

"Richard J Kinch" wrote in message
. ..
Jim D writes:

How do we remove that adhesive without damaging the slab?

Basically a messy job of removing a type a paint. A methylene chloride
chemical stripper works best.

Ditto the methylene chloride. Take all the safety precautions! It's
nasty stuff.

On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 23:34:42 -0700, "Jim D"
wrote:

We bought a house with a carpet on the concrete patio slab. The carpet was
in such bad shape that we had to tear it off the slab, but that left a lot
of ugly adhesive which we would like to remove.

How do we remove that adhesive without damaging the slab?

All help will be very greatly appreciated.

Thank you.


I've got a similar situation. Luckily my patio carpet isnt glued down,
so it will come off easy when I get to it.

However, the carpet in the kitchen(thats right, the kitchen) is glued
down. After almost three years in the house the carpet looks like
hell, is impossible to keep clean and it just doesnt belong there
anyway.

I plan on tiling or using engineered flooring but I need to wait until
my father finishes my new kitchen cabinets so I can finish the entire
floor properly. In the mean time the carpet has to go. All of the
carpet will come up easy, but there is a thick layer of adhesive
uniformly covering the entire concrete slab.

In previous attempts to get an idea what to do about it I tried a heat
gun and propane torch with a paint scraper and it seemed like it was
going to be nearly impossible to get the concrete clean. Last night I
tried a few test patches, one with paint stripper and one with water.

The paint stripper worked beautifully, but being a harsh chemical and
more expensive than water I wont be using it.

The spot I hit with water worked out very nice. My plan is to take an
old towel soak it well with water and let it sit about a half hour on
a section of slab then scrape. Once all the adhesive is scrapped I'll
go over the floor with some solvent to clean it up. Should be an
acceptable floor while waiting on my new kitchen.

I'd imagine adhesive for outside use will be water resistant, but it
might be worth a try.
Matt Mika

"Jim D" wrote in message
news:_h%ug.6863$5K2.209@fed1read03...
We bought a house with a carpet on the concrete patio slab. The carpet was
in such bad shape that we had to tear it off the slab, but that left a lot
of ugly adhesive which we would like to remove.

How do we remove that adhesive without damaging the slab?

All help will be very greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

I used a garden/ice scraper on a long handle. Of course, I was covering hte
floor with engineered hardwood so it did not have to be perfect in
appearance, just reasonably smooth.

If you cant or don't want to use the chemicals made for stripping glue
and adhisive off, Go to the wallpaper tools section at Home Depot.
They sell a 4" razor scrapers. Those are the only scrapers that will
work. Get a couple packs of blades since they don't last all that long.
Get the longer handle one which is about 18" long. Every few passes,
turn the scraper over and use the other side of the blade. That will
keep it sharp a little longer. I swear, when I started in floors as a
helper, I scraped thounds of feet in the first couple years.
Hope that helps,
Steve

Jim D wrote:
We bought a house with a carpet on the concrete patio slab. The carpet was
in such bad shape that we had to tear it off the slab, but that left a lot
of ugly adhesive which we would like to remove.

How do we remove that adhesive without damaging the slab?

All help will be very greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Gentlemen ---

My thanks to each of you for your help. I had no idea where to start with
this problem. Now, thanks to all of you, I have a whole array of solutions
to look at and work with.

Thanks again very much. My best to you all.

Jim