Removing Adhesive from Floorboards

Removing adhesive from concrete floor or floorboards that have been down there for years can prove to be a very difficult task – but one necessary when preparing to install new flooring.

When the adhesive dries, it tends to become hard and stiff and has a propensity to affect the touch and smoothness of your subfloor. This in turn causes a wealth of problems as the subfloors smoothness has the most influence on your next flooring’s appearance – and not only that but its longevity also.

The worst thing that can happen is luxury vinyl flooring moulding around any crevices or indents in the subfloor, having an overall negative effect on the image of a perfectly level floor, as well as also affecting how the next adhesive will react with the floor.

If you want a smooth and professional-looking floor, this laborious and sometimes difficult task will need to be undertaken.

The Job at Hand

How you remove the adhesive layer really will depend on what type it is and how much there is. It could be a case of sanding down a thin layer or some heavy-duty chemical use for thicker layers. The other thing to consider is the size of the space being worked on – no one wants to spend all day sanding down a giant room after all.

Some adhesives you may find are simple to just scrape off, which is great if it is a small room but not ideal for larger ones. Larger ones would probably require a more hand-held heavy scraper to make the process a lot faster.

If you reach a point where adhesive cannot be removed manually, you can use adhesive softeners which are chemical solvents that weaken the adhesive and its overall hold on the floor. These softeners will require being poured and left on the floor for a few hours before being attempted to remove. It would be best to do small areas of the floor at a time so that the softener does not evaporate and be useless.

After Softening

Now that the softener has been soaked into the adhesive, your scraper can go to work and start removing the adhesive. The adhesive should at this point come off fairly easily and peel away from the floor with no fuss.

As this is deemed the easiest method without the drama, upon the adhesive being fully scraped away you just need to leave any residual softener to evaporate. There will be some leftover fragments of adhesive left behind, but these can be easily removed with a simple mop and hot water.

With this completed, your floor is now ready for a fresh new adhesive coat to be put down, being sure to level out any crevices and dents that are present before putting adhesive down.

For more information on luxury wood effect vinyl flooring, removing adhesive from concrete floor or polyflor, contact the team at Floorbay today.