Yanking up old ugly carpet question

[Martha]

We have been going through this house for years fixing replacing etc. Now I am ripping up more ugly carpet.

This time it is red. I yank it up and the pad is become one with the hardwood oak floor. The other carpets I tore up the pad was mostly dust and the netting stapled to the floor.

How do I get this crap off my floor? I tried using my little sander with the heaviest grit to test. Didn't do much. I tried paint thinner, pinesol - I haven't tried my super duper stripper stuff yet. I like to save it for the 7 coats of paint on the woodwork. I have a heat gun stripper, but I am afraid it might catch and burn. The oak floor looks pretty decent.

I have hand scraped about 1/3 of the room. I still have 2/3 of this ugly carpet to remove - plus another area.

Any suggestions? This is a 100 yr old house.

Martha

[BubbaBob]

Drum sander rental from Orange Borg. Be sure to get the damage waiver...if you catch a nail and score the drum without it, you pay about 500 bucks to replace the drum.

BubbaBob

[MichaelW]

I used a big belt floor sander on some difficult heart pine floors that worked really well. I was told it was easier to use than the drum sander. Finished with hand sanding using pole sander. With drum or belt be extremely careful not to ruin your floors by sanding too deep, leaving gouges, etc. Keep the sander moving. Solid oak floors are extremely valuable. I paid a local pro. $40 to show me how to use the belt sander. Cherry hill sander and square D sander will probably be useless for you.

Check out http://floormasters.com/index.html message board, they were very helpful to me and had lots of archives to search. Your first reply will be to hire a proffesional but if you persist you will get some good info. Floor redooing is some of the hardest work I have ever done, but I will do some more at my house. I would rather dig ditches with a pick ax. Good luck smile.gif

[Jim Fischer]

If the carpet pad is a foam pad, there are many
solvents that will dissolve the foam, but not
eat the wood finish, if you treated small areas
and wiped it away quickly.

I'd try mineral spirits first.

Good luck. Hardwood floors are worth the effort.

[scsasdsa]

sounds like a cleaning solvent bonded the pad to the floor finish. cleanup solvent or lacquer thinner should seperate the two. soak small area at a time and use floor scraper, looks like a hand edger or ice chopper, long handel, steel blade. Sand with floor sander when done and refinish.