Carpet removal / Floor laying Q
 

Evening all.

I am trying to remove a carpet from a concrete floor, and then will be
having a wooden floor professionally layed onto the concrete floor. Only
problem is that every square inch of the carpet was glued (with what appears
to be superglue !!!!!) to the concrete. I have had moderate success with
cutting sections and pulling them up, although in 2 days I have done about
1/16 of the carpet. The problem is that some bits of the felt underlay are
still sticking to the floor. So I have several questions about this:-

1. Is there an easier way to do this ? I have read through some of the old
messages on the group and it appears solvents are not a good idea due to
risk of killing myself and blowing the house apart. I have heard that
heating the bits I want to remove may be a good idea to soften the glue,
could this be done with a paint removal hot gun or will that be too hot and
set fire to the carpet (I fear that this will be the case). Has anyone
tried using a floor scraper to do something like this ?

2. In relation to the preparation of the floor prior to laying the wood.
The company doing the floor laying are glueing solid wood to the concrete
floor which they assure me they do quite often and is very successful, I
know some companies don't like doing this, but it does seem 50/50 those that
do and those that don't. So my question is, just how flat does the floor
have to be. I have patches where the concrete screed was not finished very
well and there are bumps. Some of these bumps may give rise to a level
difference of 10mm in places. I was planning on using self levelling
compound on the floor, but most say that they only give coverages of approx
5mm. Anyone got any ideas on this one ? Could the screed be ground down to
flat or is it better to bring the floor up to the top of the bumps ?

Any help for this VERY gratefully received.

Iain

On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 17:53:38 GMT,it is alleged that "Iain Shaw"
spake thusly in uk.d-i-y:

Evening all.

I am trying to remove a carpet from a concrete floor, and then will be
having a wooden floor professionally layed onto the concrete floor. Only
problem is that every square inch of the carpet was glued (with what appears
to be superglue !!!!!) to the concrete. I have had moderate success with
cutting sections and pulling them up, although in 2 days I have done about
1/16 of the carpet. The problem is that some bits of the felt underlay are
still sticking to the floor. So I have several questions about this:-

1. Is there an easier way to do this ? I have read through some of the old
messages on the group and it appears solvents are not a good idea due to
risk of killing myself and blowing the house apart. I have heard that
heating the bits I want to remove may be a good idea to soften the glue,
could this be done with a paint removal hot gun or will that be too hot and
set fire to the carpet (I fear that this will be the case). Has anyone
tried using a floor scraper to do something like this ?

2. In relation to the preparation of the floor prior to laying the wood.
The company doing the floor laying are glueing solid wood to the concrete
floor which they assure me they do quite often and is very successful, I
know some companies don't like doing this, but it does seem 50/50 those that
do and those that don't. So my question is, just how flat does the floor
have to be. I have patches where the concrete screed was not finished very
well and there are bumps. Some of these bumps may give rise to a level
difference of 10mm in places. I was planning on using self levelling
compound on the floor, but most say that they only give coverages of approx
5mm. Anyone got any ideas on this one ? Could the screed be ground down to
flat or is it better to bring the floor up to the top of the bumps ?

Any help for this VERY gratefully received.

Iain


When I used to work for a carpet installer, we used an electric
scraper to remove the foam backing from the floor, it slices through
the actual rubbery adhesive. You are correct about solvents being a
bad idea. It MAY be possible to obtain one of these at a hire centre.

--
Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.

Iain Shaw wrote:
Evening all.

I am trying to remove a carpet from a concrete floor, and then will be
having a wooden floor professionally layed onto the concrete floor. Only
problem is that every square inch of the carpet was glued (with what appears
to be superglue !!!!!) to the concrete. I have had moderate success with
cutting sections and pulling them up, although in 2 days I have done about
1/16 of the carpet. The problem is that some bits of the felt underlay are
still sticking to the floor. So I have several questions about this:-

I wonder what would happen if you ran an electric lawn rake over it.

I had a similar experience recently.
A sort of hard wearing wirey carpet stuck to cork floor tiles stuck to
concrete.
The wirey carpet came up with brute force.
The cork tiles needed scraper, spade and all sorts of sweat!

Phil

Well I seem to have the carpet removal sorted. I got hold of an 8 inch
industrial strength floor scraper with a big steel handle and leverage and
brute force seem to be doing the job quite nicely. It is even taking the
fine bits of felt that was sticking to the floor when I was just simply
pulling it up in small chunks.

Thanks to everyone who gave a suggestion, much appreciated.

Iain


"Iain Shaw" wrote in message
m...
Evening all.

I am trying to remove a carpet from a concrete floor, and then will be
having a wooden floor professionally layed onto the concrete floor. Only
problem is that every square inch of the carpet was glued (with what
appears
to be superglue !!!!!) to the concrete. I have had moderate success with
cutting sections and pulling them up, although in 2 days I have done about
1/16 of the carpet. The problem is that some bits of the felt underlay
are
still sticking to the floor. So I have several questions about this:-

1. Is there an easier way to do this ? I have read through some of the old
messages on the group and it appears solvents are not a good idea due to
risk of killing myself and blowing the house apart. I have heard that
heating the bits I want to remove may be a good idea to soften the glue,
could this be done with a paint removal hot gun or will that be too hot
and
set fire to the carpet (I fear that this will be the case). Has anyone
tried using a floor scraper to do something like this ?

2. In relation to the preparation of the floor prior to laying the wood.
The company doing the floor laying are glueing solid wood to the concrete
floor which they assure me they do quite often and is very successful, I
know some companies don't like doing this, but it does seem 50/50 those
that
do and those that don't. So my question is, just how flat does the floor
have to be. I have patches where the concrete screed was not finished
very
well and there are bumps. Some of these bumps may give rise to a level
difference of 10mm in places. I was planning on using self levelling
compound on the floor, but most say that they only give coverages of
approx
5mm. Anyone got any ideas on this one ? Could the screed be ground down
to
flat or is it better to bring the floor up to the top of the bumps ?

Any help for this VERY gratefully received.

Iain