My house has indoor outdoor carpeting over vinyl self adhesive tiles (put on in the 70's) over vinyl roll-on flooring (original from the early 1960's), so basically three layers of flooring.

What is the preferred/best way to remove all of this and get down to the wood?

They do make power units you can rent, but, they can either work great or not at all.

This works:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Bu...aper-91300/100188949

What I do, for multiple layers, is run a circ saw in a grid pattern through all of it. If it's one layer, that's not necessary.

Thanks Arc.

Do you steam it at all to get the glue off?


I keep reading about Asbestos in linoleum. I plan to seal off the room with plastic and tape and wear a mask.

I pealed it up at a doorway and it looks like a bunch of gnarly black tar (the glue I assume) and what looks like old plywood underneath.

Was going to mention asebestos, but you’re already aware. The floors I’ve had tested have all been non-friable, in my experience. You’d pretty much have to grind the stuff up and snort it to have any long-term health issues according to one Industrial Hygienist I worked with. Be sure to check your local laws and dump facilities for asbestos materials, fines can be staggering.

What type of flooring are you going to go back with? 1/4” underlayment is great for leveling the floor out if you can’t get all the old vinyl pieces/glue up. That may not be an option depending on your final product however.

Power scrapers on a plywood/OSB floor often do more damage than good. Last resort option is to pull the carpet and cut up the remaining floor with the sub floor. Huge mess, consumes a lot of time and materials ($$).

quote:

Originally posted by MattW:
Was going to mention asebestos, but you’re already aware. The floors I’ve had tested have all been non-friable, in my experience. You’d pretty much have to grind the stuff up and snort it to have any long-term health issues according to one Industrial Hygienist I worked with. Be sure to check your local laws and dump facilities for asbestos materials, fines can be staggering.

What type of flooring are you going to go back with? 1/4” underlayment is great for leveling the floor out if you can’t get all the old vinyl pieces/glue up. That may not be an option depending on your final product however.

With the exception of the kitchen and two bathrooms the entire house is red oak. The plan is to strip out the three layers that are there now and replace it with red oak that blends with the rest of the house (the rest of the house needs to be refinished).

1/4” underlayment is out then if you’re going match the existing oak. I wouldn’t be too worried about getting every single last piece of the glue up. Any small variations under the new oak won’t show themselves once the oak is down.

Be prepared to replace the subfloor around the toilets as wax rings often fail over time. Your subfloor may be 1”x4” or 1”x6” on a 45 if your house is from the 70’s. If so, it’s often brittle with age and easy to fall through. A 1-2’ fall going into your crawlspace feels like an eternity. Another option is old MDF on top of 1/2” plywood. Eliminate the MDF all together if that’s the case and level with plywood/OSB/CDX

Steam it? No. Not practical or effective with multiple layers.

RE Asbestos..

The adhesive is what contains the asbestos, not the tile. While some tile had asbestos, most did not. Meanwhile, the black tar like adhesive is highly likely to have asbestos. If it is not present, then there is little danger.

Neither the tile or adhesive is friable, and so can be safely demoed.... as long as you own the home you're doing it in.

If you are being paid to demo out someone elses potentially asbestos flooring or anthing else, you need to CYA and test it.

If this is your home, you are doing it for you, and while I don't know CA law, you are generally within your right.

Anyway.

Vinyl tile and linoleum themselves have little chance of containing asbestos, it's the adhesive. This is from multiple tests over years. Either way, it is not friable. The dangerous asbestos is the insulation products. Pipe, and loose pack types that can aerate when disturbed.

The carpet, pull it up. Then pull a corner of the floor down to where you want to stop. Set the saw. Make a grid of cuts with a sacrificial blade.

Then, with a floor scraper and wrecking bars, peel it off.

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder76:
They do make power units you can rent, but, they can either work great or not at all.

This works:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Bu...aper-91300/100188949

What I do, for multiple layers, is run a circ saw in a grid pattern through all of it. If it's one layer, that's not necessary.

As a last resort, I had to use one of these, but I couldn’t just plow linoleum off the concrete slab. I ground about a 30 degree angle edge on the blade and would drop it straight down about 1 1/2 inches back from the edge of the linoleum. The force of impact would cause the flooring pop off in flakes. It’s a slow process, but it worked, leaving me with just a little easy scraping to do. YMMV

To be clear this is a raised foundation house...

I peaked under the kitchen cabinets (which are original to the house) and it looks like they're on particleboard (not OSB).

So I'm wondering if this is an underlayment and I can just take a circular saw, set it to 1/2" and just start cutting out chucks of all this crap to get down to what I hope is a plywood subfloor. Does that make sense?

Particle board, no bueno. You’re on the right track, but a circular saw won’t get you close enough to your cabinets. You’ll need a toe kick saw to really get up close. They can be awkward to use if you’re not familiar with them, practice first. I’ve seen more than one person let one get away from them and run it up the side of a cabinet (expensive oops). You can leave the particle board under the cabinets provided it’s in good shape and you don’t plan on redoing them. There should be a layer of 1/2” plywood under that particle board. Be ready with new OSB/CDX to put down when the particle board is up as that 1/2” plywood will more than likely be weak/wouldn’t trust sliding a fridge around on it more than I have to.

Just thinking, is the oak currently level with the vinyl/carpet? Adding a layer of OSB/CDX may not be an option as once you put down the oak it may raise the new oak above the old stuff causing an awkward transition into the bathrooms and kitchen. Additionally, how is the current oak ran? Will you have to remove some of it to finger in, or will you be able to just continue the new oak through the doorways/opening?

If it's not 1/2" plywood under the particle board then you should have 1"x4" or 1"x6" under the particle board. If that's the case, more than likely the existing oak is nailed straight to it. Quick way to determine that is to jump in the crawl and look up. You'll quickly be able to tell if it's plywood or 1 by hiding under your floors. It really just depends on what the builder did originally. I've seen identical homes in the same neighborhood with different sub floor constructions, it can be a coin toss.

I've only seen it once, but your worst case is nothing below the particle board but joists. I can't imagine that being your case, but wouldn't rule it out till you know for sure.

I am a safety officer and have a lot of experience with Asbestos.

You have several options, but I would never use a circular saw to cut asbestos containing material, that or grinding, is the quickest way to make it friable and blow throughout the home.

Breaking tile, very unlikely to release fibers, they are tough little suckers, and will hold on. But grinding, cutting, sanding, breaking down... That is how they become friable... Bad idea, negligent really.

I think popping them up is safest bet, dry ice, scraper, hard work, best bet. Work it wet, even better.

The mastic will be a bugger, once you are to that level, then use a mastic remover, BUT, make sure you follow ventilation requirements, most solvents, MEK etc, req lots of fresh air and likely a respirator.

You can send in samples to labs in your area, most charge about $6 per sample to let you know what you have. Send in Tile, linoleum, and scrape small area of mastic.

Then determine how much you can do yourself, and what a professional needs to do.

Asbestos is an amazing product, fantastic really, great for so many many things. So great, and widespread that it has it's very own standard to address it.
29 CFR 1910.1001

Lots of good info to read when you can't sleep.