Tearing Up Carpet Hardwood Floors

The work can be dusty so wear a dust mask and safety glasses.

Tearing up carpet hardwood floors. Browsing carpet samples at your local home improvement center is a great way to get pointed in the right direction for a new look for your floor but. Be sure your saw blade is set to the thickness of your hardwood floors so that you re not cutting through your sub floor. Prybar for pulling up the carpet tack strips. Fold the carpet over for easy cutting and slice it into narrow strips.

Then grab the carpet by hand and continue to pull it up along an entire wall. The suite was beautiful. Just grab the carpet with pliers and pull. Use a utility knife or carpet knife to slice the carpet into manageable strips and roll the strips up as you go.

But let me back up and tell you about a basement suite i rented after university. It actually had a decent amount of natural light. Move all the furniture and personal items out of the room you will be renovating. Use the pliers to pull up any staples that remain stuck in the floor.

This means removing the carpet first the. Roll up the strips and tape them for easy handling. Use your standard screwdriver to pry them from the floor. Use pliers to tightly grab the carpet.

Remove the carpet tacking strips which may be nailed or stapled to the hardwood floor. 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. Pull toward you to detach it from the sharp tack strip that holds it to the floor along the wall. To detach the carpet from the tack strip that holds the carpet in place along walls start in a corner.

Remove any carpet transition strips which are the metal strips nailed or screwed down in a doorway. If you are trying to salvage the floor underneath make sure you do not cut grooves in the floor with the knife. I ve redone several hardwood floors including one time removing carpet and redoing the beautiful wood floors underneath. Tools for restoring hardwood floors under carpet utility knife for cutting up carpet and or padding into more manageable size strips for rolling up and removing from the room.

Dispose of tacking strips and any staples or nails that held the strips in place. Put on a pair of sturdy work gloves and start tearing up carpet in a corner of the room. Try to pull the carpeting back starting in one corner of the room. Our hardwood was 5 8 inch thick so that s how far the blade fell beneath the base of the saw.

Now it s time to start prying the wood up. One way to do this is to lift the carpet away from the floor as you cut. The right carpet is about more than color.