I’ve recently bought a fixer-upper and ripped up some UGLY vinyl and carpet that was glued on top of what looks like a pretty decent oak floor. I plan on renting a floor sander; i know it’ll get gummed up pretty fast and i’ll have to keep changing it, but it’s a pretty thin layer of glue. However, there’s a lot of glue in the cracks between the baseboards, and i’m wondering if there is a relatively easy and effective way to get that out, other than spending days on my hands and knees scraping it out with something. Any suggestions?
Jesse David
“Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before,” Bokonon tells us. “He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.”
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I bought a 1930's gambrel that had grey shag carpet glued to oak flooring. When I pulled the funk-sponge slash carpet I revealed a very nice floor job with the finish intact save for the huge smears of adhesive. Upon inspecting the floor planks, they were too thin to stand a sander for long so I went chemical. I tried every chemical I could get my hands on to remove the glue without marring the finish, a losing proposition. I ended up stripping the floor and refinishing. There's isn't anything easy or effective when it comes to removing adhesive, ya just gotta git down on it and scrape. Have fun and thank the fella who thought it OK to glue a flooring on top of hardwood!
in my area the 1 1/2 in oak is pretty thin - 3/8 or soemthing like that; the wider stuff is 3/4" thick.
Was it vinyl, linoleum or 9" Vinyl Asbesto Tiles (VAT?)
It is my understanding that some/many older tiles AND tile adhesives contained asbestos, so you might want to give close thought to abrasive techniques (and any possible contamination from what you've done so far.)
See, e,g, http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/asbestos/floortile/
JesseDavid,
There is a cheap air-powered gasket scraper (harbor freight I think) that we have had a lot of success with in situations like this. We also use it to take paint off hinges and old plastic tile glue. The blade isn't real sharp, but that's good - it keeps it from acting like a chisel.
I think I have dealt with the stuff you described. The type I'm remembering was almost black and brittle. At that time we used carbide scrapers (hand).