Tearing Up Carpet Hardwood Floors

It actually had a decent amount of natural light.

Tearing up carpet hardwood floors.

Prybar for pulling up the carpet tack strips. If you are trying to salvage the floor underneath make sure you do not cut grooves in the floor with the knife. But let me back up and tell you about a basement suite i rented after university. The right carpet is about more than color.

Now it s time to start prying the wood up. 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. One way to do this is to lift the carpet away from the floor as you cut. Dispose of tacking strips and any staples or nails that held the strips in place.

Use pliers to tightly grab the carpet. Use a utility knife or carpet knife to slice the carpet into manageable strips and roll the strips up as you go. Remove any carpet transition strips which are the metal strips nailed or screwed down in a doorway. Fold the carpet over for easy cutting and slice it into narrow strips.

Put on a pair of sturdy work gloves and start tearing up carpet in a corner of the room. Just grab the carpet with pliers and pull. I ve redone several hardwood floors including one time removing carpet and redoing the beautiful wood floors underneath. Our hardwood was 5 8 inch thick so that s how far the blade fell beneath the base of the saw.

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. The first step in replacing your carpet with hardwood is removing the old carpet. Roll up the strips and tape them for easy handling. The work can be dusty so wear a dust mask and safety glasses.

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. Move all the furniture and personal items out of the room you will be renovating. Try to pull the carpeting back starting in one corner of the room. Then grab the carpet by hand and continue to pull it up along an entire wall.

Be sure your saw blade is set to the thickness of your hardwood floors so that you re not cutting through your sub floor. The suite was beautiful. To detach the carpet from the tack strip that holds the carpet in place along walls start in a corner. Remove the carpet tacking strips which may be nailed or stapled to the hardwood floor.

Use your standard screwdriver to pry them from the floor. Use the pliers to pull up any staples that remain stuck in the floor. I m a big fan of hardwood flooring.