removing basement carpet

[Mark Modrall]

Hi...

I've been ripping out some old 1970's carpet from the basement. I've found that there's some kind of glue they sprinkled down to hold the carpet. Is there any good way to get the glue/backing grunge up from the cement? I used a scraper to get the carpet up. Then I tried a wire brush to get the leftover. That does a pretty good job, but you can still see the glue lines so it's not getting it all.

My wife has been after me to ask if there's a better/more complete solution. At the very least she wants to spray it down with bleach to kill all the mold that was growing in there.

Thanks

-Mark

[baspluim]

Is the glue black? I had the same problem, carpet glued to a concrete basement floor. A commercial adhesive remover will do the job, check out your local home improvement store.

The adhesive remover is nasty stuff though. Make sure you ventilate very, very well. Work for 20 minutes, then take a break.

I used large scraper to get off the worst stuff, then used a cheap brush to apply the remover. Let it sit for 5 minutes, then scrape off with a putty knife. Do small sections at a time. Using the wire brush is a good idea, the more you get off beforehand the less remover you need to apply. It requires some more muscle, but it saves a ton of braincells.

Good luck.

Mark Modrall wrote:

[Mark Modrall]

Our glue happens to be an orangey-yellow, but the issue's still the same - the gunk is all over in the cement. When I tore up the carpet, it even held onto most of the foam backing.

I'll try the adhesive remover after the brushing. A couple of questions:

1) is the adhesive remover itself like a paint? I mean when it dries, do you scrape it off like a film of latex? 2) What's the net result? Is there still discoloration in the cement, or does it essentially get the stuff off?

Thanks _mark

[Banty]

I had that in my house - I had gotten a new commercial-grade polypro to put in my basement, and the old carpet (screaming '70s! red orange green pattern) had been glued down. Poor installers scraped for a day, while I got me and my son, both with allergies, out of the house. Good thing I had planned to put down carpet again, over padding. Keeping the basement dry with the B-Dry system I had just had installed and using a dehumidifier in the summer has kept that carpet just fine so far, and that was in 1996.

So the question is - what do you plan to put down there? The concrete did not have to be absolutely clean to replace the carpet, and I think a bleach spray, then drying, of whatever's left should do.

If you need it really clean for tile or linoleum, then others here are better sources for info.

Banty

[Joey]

Mark,

Home Depot rents a scraper that you walk behind to take care of this job. Well worth the money and easy on the back.

J

[Mark Modrall]

Thanks for the response... What should I be asking for, specifically? I was up at a Home Depot yesterday, and the guy in flooring insisted up and down that they wouldn't rent one of their floor sanders to do concrete and that there was no mechanical scraper. He pointed me to what was, essentially, a large paint scraper on a stick and said that was the best they had.

I pressed a little more, then he took me to the adhesive remover, though as a prior poster responded, it has warnings up and down about how toxic it is and how you have to have super ventilation to use it.

I also asked about epoxy or some such to fill a hairline crack (on another thread, someone mentioned Sika Flex (sp?) also supposed to be available at Home Depot) but the guy insisted that didn't exist either. He suggested using spackle.

So far I'm using the wire brush, and while I'm getting most of the mold and backing up it is a lot of work and it doesn't seem to get to the adhesive. If I know what machine to ask for, it would be nice to be more thorough and save my back :)

Thanks

-Mark