Took me 4 hours to stretch a room that should have been 45 minutes

I had this job last Tuesday out in Maplewood, a 12x15 bedroom with some tricky corners. The customer had already pulled up the old carpet themselves and left all the tack strip and staples. I figured no big deal, I'll just lay the new pad and carpet, stretch it tight, and be done. But man, the subfloor had this old glue residue from some vinyl that was down before the previous carpet. Every time I kicked my power stretcher, it would slip and I'd have to reset. I ended up having to scrape about 80% of that glue off with a floor scraper before the tack strip would even hold. By the time I got the carpet stretched and trimmed, my back was killing me and I had blown almost the whole afternoon. What's the fastest way you guys deal with old glue on plywood subfloor?

2 comments

2 Comments

iris_green8410d ago

My buddy Dave ran into that same glue mess last month, said he tried a heat gun on low and it peeled up in sheets instead of dust and chips. Took him maybe twenty extra minutes for a whole living room but saved his knees some grief. He swears by it now for any sticky subfloor situation.

faith_lopez4810d ago

Idk, is twenty extra minutes really worth it for glue?