Taking Up Carpet From Hardwood Floors

But take it from the experienced pros who have.

Taking up carpet from hardwood floors.

The home stretch refinishing after sanding your floors you should plug any holes caused by nails by filling them with wood plugs or wood paste a combination of saw dust and white. Or are you planning a project of your own. While it pays to work slowly to remove the carpet whether it was secured with adhesive a tack strip and staples or both it s understandable to feel a growing sense of anticipation before you lay eyes on the floor for the first time. Start by pulling up the carpet.

Use the pliers to pull up any staples that remain stuck in the floor. Carpet padding strips staples nails glue. Have you tried restoring hardwood floors under carpet. You don t want to cause any damage to your floor by ripping up the carpet hard and fast.

An even better option when it comes to getting your floors clean after removing carpet is to opt for a hardwood steam cleaner. The basic rule of thumb with removing the carpet for a hardwood installation is that you just go in reverse to take things back to the original subfloor. Once the carpet is up it is not going to be very pretty. It s a project for an optimist if there ever was one.

The next step would be to refinish your floors but before you can do this you need to sand them to remove any scuff marks left by the carpet or by your cleaning. Prybar for pulling up the carpet tack strips. Utility knife for cutting up carpet and or padding into more manageable size strips for rolling up and removing from the room. Remove the carpet tacking strips which may be nailed or stapled to the hardwood floor.

Use a utility knife or carpet knife to slice the carpet into manageable strips and roll the strips up as you go. Dispose of tacking strips and any staples or nails that held the strips in place. One way to do this is to lift the carpet away from the floor as you cut. Even though you are probably eager and excited to finally see your hardwood floors underneath please push down your excitement and take this step slow.

Removing carpet to expose the wood floor underneath. Not only will it help to loosen any extra dirt and grime but in the event that you also missed a little bit of adhesive the hot steam from the mop will help to loosen the material so it can be. If you are trying to salvage the floor underneath make sure you do not cut grooves in the floor with the knife. Stripping hardwood flooring the wrong way can cost you hours of backbreaking work leave you with an enormous mess and even cause permanent damage to your subflooring.