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Removing The
Carpet and Pad
Hopefully your steps will not be stapled to
death (carpet padding) by the original carpet
installer. In most
cases the carpet will have been installed by the
stretch in method. To remove, grab a pair of
pliers and snag the corner at the bottom,
pulling it up at the same time. This should free
the stretch on the bottom area, allowing you to
remove one
section at a time. Carpet installers
use several pieces on step installations so you
won't have to deal with one huge piece of
carpet.
The carpet pad
will be cut into pieces and stapled to the steps
and overlap the nosing. They will be easy to
pull with your hands providing not many staples
were used. Did we mention the use of gloves
while doing this kind of work? Those lil carpet
tack pins are extremely sharp.
Tack Strip Removal
Tack strip removal can be done with the use of a
pry bar (often called wonder bar) and hammer.
Did you ever wonder what was underneath all that
carpet? Over the years I've found some real
goodies, including carpet
blades, cigarette butts, and lumps of drywall
splatter to name a few.
In this case the removal was quite simple.
Reasons being the installers used tack strip
designed for attaching to concrete. Our guess is
they were too lazy to use the proper tack strip
for wood subfloors, which happen to hold much
better.
Clean The Mess
Once again
depending on who the drywall dudes were, you may
find lumps all over the steps. All of it has to
be removed before the actual installation. Any
void under the hardwood will create squeaking
effects eventually. Considering we will also be
gluing the plank to these steps, paint overspray
has to be removed to allow a good bond with glue
and wood.
Renting a flooring edger will work the quickest,
but it will not get into corners that will have
to be scraped by hand. Maybe that belt sander in
the garage will work? |
