The flooring of a room is something that takes a lot of effort and money to install. If you are remodeling your house, and want to change the ambiance and look of a room, then putting in new flooring is a good albeit expensive option. Before you can install the new flooring of your choice, you need to first remove the old flooring. This process can be time-consuming and labor intensive depending upon the material of the existing flooring and the kind of surface it is laid on. If your current flooring is vinyl flooring, then you will need to know how to remove vinyl flooring. Here we are going to discuss how you can remove vinyl flooring from your sub floor.
Removing Vinyl Flooring from Concrete
To procedure for installing vinyl flooring is time-consuming but removing it is equally labor intensive. It is not enough to know how to install vinyl flooring, you need to know how to remove it too. To remove vinyl flooring, you will first need a few essential supplies. These supplies can be bought from any home improvement store.
Things required Floor putty knife Utility knife Floor scraper Acetone Paint scraper Work gloves Heat gun (optional) Procedure
Before we discuss how to remove vinyl flooring, you need to find out how the flooring was fixed to the sub floor. If adhesive was applied to the entire sub floor before laying the vinyl sheets, then you have considerable work to be done. On the other hand, if adhesive was applied only to the perimeter of the sub floor, then removing vinyl flooring will be lot easier and less time-consuming. Once you have determined how the vinyl flooring was installed, you need to start working on the best way to remove vinyl flooring.
For vinyl floor removal, use the utility knife to cut the vinyl flooring into small rectangular strips that are about 6 - 8 inches in width. Insert the floor putty knife on the edge of the flooring and slide it underneath it. Move the putty knife underneath the vinyl flooring in swift in and out motion and lift the flooring piece towards you. With a single motion, strip the piece of flooring and discard. To make this process easier, you should start from one edge and work towards the center. It is essential that you wear thick work gloves while removing vinyl flooring if you do not want to hurt your hand.
Once the entire flooring has been stripped off from the sub floor, scrape the old adhesive that was used for installing the vinyl flooring. To do this you can use the paint scrapper. If you are lucky, the adhesive will easily come off with a paint scrapper. However, if your vinyl flooring was very old, then the adhesive might have hardened and it will proof to be very tough to remove. The best way to remove the adhesive is to apply acetone. Be careful while handling the acetone and apply it liberally over the hardened adhesive. Let it soak for a few minutes and use the floor scraper to remove the softened glue. Sometimes even after using acetone, the hardened glue cannot be removed. In such a case, you can use a heat gun to soften the adhesive and then lift off the softened adhesive with the paint scraper. Once you are done removing all the adhesive from the vinyl flooring, you need to clean the floor with water.
This is how you remove vinyl flooring. It is a messy and time-consuming process but necessary if you want to install new flooring.
