What is the best way to remove carpet that has been glued down in a bedroom?

The house our daughter is purchasing has this glued carpet in one of the
bedrooms.

From the description, it's possibly an indoor/outdoor carpet or an
industrial type carpet rather than plush.

"CJ" wrote in message
...
What is the best way to remove carpet that has been glued down in a
bedroom?

The house our daughter is purchasing has this glued carpet in one of the
bedrooms.

From the description, it's possibly an indoor/outdoor carpet or an
industrial type carpet rather than plush.

Pull it up and scrape off the residue. An ice scraper on a long stick is
handy so you don't have to bend.

"CJ" wrote in message
...
What is the best way to remove carpet that has been glued down in a
bedroom?

The house our daughter is purchasing has this glued carpet in one of the
bedrooms.

From the description, it's possibly an indoor/outdoor carpet or an
industrial type carpet rather than plush.


Depending on how aggressive the adhesive is, this can be a monster job.
Professional installers use hooked blades on utility knives to slit the
carpet into strips, then they pull up the individual strips. If they have
to cut the carpet into 2' by room length strips, that's what they do. If
that doesn't work, they cut it into 1' strips. If that is still too tough,
they continue slitting to smaller strip sizes until they get to a size that
is managable.

In the basement playroom in my old house, someone had gotten extremely
generous with the adhesive. I had to cut the 800 sf of carpet into 4 to 6"
strips to remove it. It took chunks of concrete with it. It probably took
me 20 man hours to pull everything up.

KB

Oh my! This sounds like it could be a lot of hard work ... a monster job for
sure......to get the glue up.
I'm now wondering if it's possible that renting a steamer and steaming the
carpet/glue
beforehand, would help remove the carpet and glue easier (somewhat like
removing wallpaper but a bit more complicated probably. Sounds messy too,
but maybe it would loosen the glue better than dry scraping).

And, I am very thankful for each response to my request for information
about this dilemma.


"Kyle Boatright" wrote in message
...

"CJ" wrote in message
...
What is the best way to remove carpet that has been glued down in a
bedroom?

The house our daughter is purchasing has this glued carpet in one of the
bedrooms.

From the description, it's possibly an indoor/outdoor carpet or an
industrial type carpet rather than plush.


Depending on how aggressive the adhesive is, this can be a monster job.
Professional installers use hooked blades on utility knives to slit the
carpet into strips, then they pull up the individual strips. If they have
to cut the carpet into 2' by room length strips, that's what they do. If
that doesn't work, they cut it into 1' strips. If that is still too tough,
they continue slitting to smaller strip sizes until they get to a size
that
is managable.

In the basement playroom in my old house, someone had gotten extremely
generous with the adhesive. I had to cut the 800 sf of carpet into 4 to
6"
strips to remove it. It took chunks of concrete with it. It probably
took
me 20 man hours to pull everything up.

KB

"CJ" wrote:
What is the best way to remove carpet that has been glued down in a
bedroom?

The house our daughter is purchasing has this glued carpet in one of the
bedrooms.

From the description, it's possibly an indoor/outdoor carpet or an
industrial type carpet rather than plush.

As others have said, it depends on how strongly it's glued down, and also
what the floor underneath is like (as this determines how aggressive you
need to be).

The house I just bought had carpetting in all the rooms (except for the
bathroom); luckily, it was only glued down in two of them. In one bedroom,
it was very easy to tear off, though a lot of residue was left behind (on a
hardwood floor, so I haven't been too aggressive in scraping/cleaning it
yet); in the other, the carpet was cemented to linoleum, which was cemented
to the plywood underneath. I ended up wedging a garden pitchfork in under
the carpet and rocking it, using the leverage to break everything free.
After the carpet (taking most of the linoleum with it) was gone, I went back
through with scrapers to get rid of the remaining glue. Tearing the carpet
out by myself took a couple of hours; two of us were able to finish scraping
in a couple more.

I don't think I'd recommend steaming the carpet--if the glue re-liquified,
and then got all over you, it could be a royal pain, given how stongly it
was adhering to my kitchen floor.

-D.

"CJ" wrote in message
...
Oh my! This sounds like it could be a lot of hard work ... a monster job
for
sure......to get the glue up.
I'm now wondering if it's possible that renting a steamer and steaming the
carpet/glue
beforehand, would help remove the carpet and glue easier (somewhat like
removing wallpaper but a bit more complicated probably. Sounds messy too,
but maybe it would loosen the glue better than dry scraping).

And, I am very thankful for each response to my request for information
about this dilemma.

To be honest with you, I'm an engineer for the world's largest carpet
manufacturer. I called in every resource I could to find a better method
than "brute force" to remove my own glued down installation.

The only helpful suggestion I recieved is that there is a machine that can
be rented which has a vibrating blade and will act something like a sod
cutter and remove carpet glued to a concrete floor. Some rental places have
the machine, some do not. Try calling a local carpet dealer and see if they
can point you in the right direction. Don't try using this machine on
anything other than a concrete floor.

KB




"Kyle Boatright" wrote in message
...

"CJ" wrote in message
...
What is the best way to remove carpet that has been glued down in a
bedroom?

The house our daughter is purchasing has this glued carpet in one of
the
bedrooms.

From the description, it's possibly an indoor/outdoor carpet or an
industrial type carpet rather than plush.


Depending on how aggressive the adhesive is, this can be a monster job.
Professional installers use hooked blades on utility knives to slit the
carpet into strips, then they pull up the individual strips. If they
have
to cut the carpet into 2' by room length strips, that's what they do. If
that doesn't work, they cut it into 1' strips. If that is still too
tough,
they continue slitting to smaller strip sizes until they get to a size
that
is managable.

In the basement playroom in my old house, someone had gotten extremely
generous with the adhesive. I had to cut the 800 sf of carpet into 4 to
6"
strips to remove it. It took chunks of concrete with it. It probably
took
me 20 man hours to pull everything up.

KB

Again, thank you to all who responded.
I understand that underneath is a sub-floor, so, the pitchfork suggestion
definitely sounds like a worthy tool to try in this situation (although, I
would think that taking pictures of the person(s) with pitchfork in hand
during this removal process would be called for........Maybe even a warning
sign would be good safety procedure too.....Beware! Pitchfork in use in a
bedroom!).

Yea, I kinda thought that steaming the carpet and glue might cause a
problem.......if it were to go wrong with the glue re-liquifying,........it
might make a good "I Love Lucy" episode though!!!

CJ


"David Gale" wrote in message
...
"CJ" wrote:
What is the best way to remove carpet that has been glued down in a
bedroom?

The house our daughter is purchasing has this glued carpet in one of the
bedrooms.

From the description, it's possibly an indoor/outdoor carpet or an
industrial type carpet rather than plush.

As others have said, it depends on how strongly it's glued down, and also
what the floor underneath is like (as this determines how aggressive you
need to be).

The house I just bought had carpetting in all the rooms (except for the
bathroom); luckily, it was only glued down in two of them. In one
bedroom,
it was very easy to tear off, though a lot of residue was left behind (on
a
hardwood floor, so I haven't been too aggressive in scraping/cleaning it
yet); in the other, the carpet was cemented to linoleum, which was
cemented
to the plywood underneath. I ended up wedging a garden pitchfork in under
the carpet and rocking it, using the leverage to break everything free.
After the carpet (taking most of the linoleum with it) was gone, I went
back
through with scrapers to get rid of the remaining glue. Tearing the
carpet
out by myself took a couple of hours; two of us were able to finish
scraping
in a couple more.

I don't think I'd recommend steaming the carpet--if the glue re-liquified,
and then got all over you, it could be a royal pain, given how stongly it
was adhering to my kitchen floor.

-D.

Assuming the glue can be reached by a liquid you can try liberly
wetting a section with Krud Kutter which I bought at home depot to
remove glue from vinal tile after ripping out a rug. took 24 hours of
soaking with a bit of water added now and again to keep floor wet.

I used it full strength and it did not harm wood basebord or vinal.
also no smell to speak of.