Often times, in businesses, especially offices and retail spaces, the carpet is commercial grade to lessen the wear caused by heavy foot traffic. It is usually glued to the subfloor, most typically to concrete, to keep it in place and prevent it from creasing, creating tripping hazards. While this type of carpet can last for many years, eventually, it will mat down, become stained, and have to be replaced. Tearing up glue down commercial carpet is something practically anyone can do, but it is very labor intensive.
How to Take Up Commercial Glue Down Carpet
To remove carpet glued to the subfloor, you’ll only need a few tools. Gather together gloves, pliers, a putty knife, a large floor scraper, a bucket, a hand sprayer, adhesive or mastic remover, and a bucket. burundi . The tools are to pull-up the glued commercial carpet, while the cleaning supplies are to help loosen it from the subfloor.
A “glued-down” floor refers to flooring installed on a concrete or plywood subfloor with adhesive. Vinyl tiles and sheet vinyl, as well as some types of hardwood and carpet, are installed using an adhesive. Remove the flooring with a floor-scraping tool. For large rooms, a walk-behind power scraper works best. —San Francisco Chronicle
Clear the room completely of any furniture to work freely. Then, to pull-up the carpet by starting in the far back corner of the room. Using pliers, grab hold of the corner and pull back up away from the wall and off the floor this will serve as your starting point. Once you have the corner taken-up, put on a pair of gloves and follow these steps:
- Pull the corner further up, then spray the mastic remover onto the floor, working along the wall. You’ll have to use a putty knife at first to scrape up the first corner of the carpet, then, you can use the floor scraper.
- Continue to pull the carpet away from the length of the wall, then cut it into two or three sections perpendicular to the wall. This will allow you to work with smaller, more manageable sections and lessen the strain on your back.
- Scrape and pull each section perpendicular from the wall, using the floor scraper and mastic remover. This will be labor intensive and take a lot of time. Depending on the size of the room, you might have to break the job up into two days or more.
- Roll the carpet up as you pull it up, cutting it into smaller sections to make it easier to carry out of the room.
Once the carpet is totally taken up, clean the glue off of the subfloor using the mastic remover and the floor scraper.
Disposing of Glue Down Commercial Carpet
To dispose of the commercial carpet you’ll either have to rent a truck and haul it to the landfill and pay a hefty fee or just phone a junk removal service to come on-site and haul it away.