Q: The house I bought has old carpet in the bedroom. I lifted the carpet and found hardwood floors. The problem is that whoever put the carpet in glued it down! The carpet comes off easy enough, but the underpad is glued to the floor. The carpet looks like it is 20-25 years old. How do I get the glue off the floor?
Do I have to sand and stain the floor? Should I just by a new carpet and cover it up? Help!
I am wondering what kind of fool glues carpet down over hardwood?
A: Someone who doesn’t understand the value of a wood floor and hasn’t a clue what they are doing. Sounds like a description of quite a few (unqualified) DIY persons.
The only practical way I know of to remove this is to sand it off. I would recommend a professional. You will have to decide beforehand if the floor is thick enough to take an aggressive work out, which will be needed. Also, how tight or how many gaps are in the floor? If there are a lot of gaps, it is unlikely you will remove the adhesive from between the boards. Carpet is a cheap, temporary solution. If it seems ill advised to try to sand this floor, removing it and installing a new 3/4 thick floor is the long term solution.
Related Q: We tore up our carpet to find that we have nasty yellow/tan glue over our hard wood floors. We have scrapped, planed, and started to use some paint thinner. Could we use a drum sander with 16 grit paper to remove this glue?
A: You know about 16 grit sand paper? Well yes that would be the way to do it. I’ve done my share. Keep in mind the thickness of the floor can help determine if doing this is worth while or not. By thickness I am particularly referring to the thickness from the top surface of the board to the top of the tongue and groove. If that gets thin the wood will start splitting.
Follow-up Q: I’ve spent many hours crying over this project I really wanted.
We attempted 40 grit and it gummed up. So I didn’t know what we should use. They are original hardwood floors, I will check the wood depth in the vent. What is a good “thickness” that 16 would be acceptable. I hand planned all the glue off in the dining room. I don’t think my arm can handle the massive living room.
A: You may have wanted to hire a professional for this job, but you are into it now. If this is old style strip, you only have 3/8 or half inch from top to bottom. The wear layer is much less than this. If you start seeing nail heads appearing on the board edges you are going to be about done with this floor. If it is 3/4 thick you should be good. Sometimes people do this sort of glue down over hardwood because the floor is in really bad shape. other times it is because they don’t have a clue what they are doing. Hopefully in this case it is the latter, not the former.