Our landlord has given us permission to remove the rubber backed carpet in our basement.
Removing foam backed carpet glue.
It s not uncommon to find floors covered with foam backing material that s been glued straight to the floor.
Before moving forward take note.
If the glue is more yellowish in colour choose an adhesive remover.
You ll be using white spirit as a solvent to remove the foam from your floor.
Successfully removing carpet adhesive.
The room is 15 feet by 28 feet and the carpet was a direct glue down.
Easiest way to remove glued foam carpet backing from floors.
We have tried using a paint scraper to peel and scrape the rubber off.
Pour the solution onto the areas of leftover adhesive on the concrete.
Go to any corner of the room and pull up a small area of the carpet until you can see the floor underneath.
If the old glue has a brownish tint to it you can assume it s made with a tar based material.
Mineral spirits is a good solvent with which to start experimenting it can soften synthetic adhesives and it s safe for most floor finishes.
To make this easy but effective floor adhesive remover add equal parts hot water and white vinegar in a bucket.
Removing carpet glue with vinegar.
Step 2 use boiling water.
If mineral spirits doesn t work try denatured alcohol which is good for removing dried latex paint.
Let the solution sit for several minutes while the vinegar dissolves the glue.
As we removed the carpet the rubber backing detached from the carpeting and is still glued to the concrete floor.
My final method looked something like this.
Carpet adhesives manufactured in the 1980s or earlier may contain asbestos a known.
After scraping up the foam backing i poured some of the sentinel on a small area of the floor and spread it around with an old mop.
Boiling water will soften up hard to remove glue.
A third option is spray lubricant which is a petroleum distillate like mineral spirits and can loosen the adhesion of the latex to the finish.
Remove as much of the carpet glue as possible by scraping it using a razor blade scraper.
Pour the boiling water over the carpet glue and allow it to sit there for.
The scraper can easily remove big chunks of the glue which helps get the job done more easily later.
If you just removed carpet and now you need to remove the carpet glue from a concrete floor here are some tips the methods below are easy ways for preparing your concrete floors for laminate tile or hardwood you can try the environmentally friendly products or use the proven but toxic chemical glue strippers.