Help! Removed carpet from basement, now what??

[G-Ram]

So I am redoing the basement rec room. It is “finished” but not very well. Wood paneling, carpet directly on the concrete floor, etc. Our house is small... under 1000 sq/ft, 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom. Our family is growing fast. 3 year old son and another on the way! My wife begged me to start on the basement so first thing I did was pull the trim and tear out the carpet. We agreed that we would simply paint the floor and use an area rug “for now” until we can decide on/budget for flooring. Well I’ve removed the carpet and wow, there’s a lot of glue on the concrete...



The father-in-law seems to think we can easily scrape it off the floor. I have my doubts... Is there any reason why I shouldn’t just paint over this for now until I do the flooring? I will be using the proper underlay for concrete (tiles or rolls) and then vinyl plank or laminate on top.


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[Toomanytools?]

Looks like a mastic adhesive you can dry scrape but takes some work. It will soften with warm water, so a wallpaper steamer works or pour hot water on it and let it sit. There are chemicals that work but sometimes those will leech into the floor and cause issues with bonding for the next floor. If you lay tile the thinset will not adhere very well and can cause loose tiles. If you paint over it, it's going to look lumpy and have trowel lines. Also if you paint it now tiling later is a pain.
If you do an engineered wood floating floor then the glue or paint won't matter as you lay down a vapor pad and then the floor.
So decide what product you want in the future. If it were mine I would scrape with hot water get it clean and leave it until the funds came around to do it. I think painting is more cost that gets covered up and work that will get un done.

 

[PCustoms]

I just did this.

Home Depot sells Henry adhesive remover in the aisle with VCT tiles. You mix it with water, spread on the floor and it softens the glue.

I then scrapped it up with a 6" razor blade on a handle, use plenty of blades. A little time consuming, but very little mess at the end.

 

[James-W]

Instead of painting the floor, you might like this instead. I have the colored tiles that Sam's Club sells on my basement floor and they work really well. They look nice, they are not all that expensive, they are a lot warmer on your feet in the Winter, and if you should somehow damage a tile you can replace it easily. Additionally, as an added benefit, if a small child should fall down the tiles are a lot softer to land on than a concrete floor.

https://www.samsclub.com/sams/norsk...le-8-pack/prod22646876.ip?xid=plp_product_1_1

 

[mike93lx]

Paint won't stick. If temporary, i would cover it will something (cheap area rug?) until you can put down your laminate. If youbare covering i, why deal with removing it?

 

[G-Ram]

Thank you everyone for your helpful replies

Paint won't stick. If temporary, i would cover it will something (cheap area rug?) until you can put down your laminate. If youbare covering i, why deal with removing it?

Exactly what I was thinking, now to convince the father-in-law, HA!!

Instead of painting the floor, you might like this instead. I have the colored tiles that Sam's Club sells on my basement floor and they work really well. They look nice, they are not all that expensive, they are a lot warmer on your feet in the Winter, and if you should somehow damage a tile you can replace it easily. Additionally, as an added benefit, if a small child should fall down the tiles are a lot softer to land on than a concrete floor.



https://www.samsclub.com/sams/norsk...le-8-pack/prod22646876.ip?xid=plp_product_1_1

Thanks for the idea, I will see what my wife thinks of those!

Looks like a mastic adhesive you can dry scrape but takes some work. It will soften with warm water, so a wallpaper steamer works or pour hot water on it and let it sit. There are chemicals that work but sometimes those will leech into the floor and cause issues with bonding for the next floor. If you lay tile the thinset will not adhere very well and can cause loose tiles. If you paint over it, it's going to look lumpy and have trowel lines. Also if you paint it now tiling later is a pain.
If you do an engineered wood floating floor then the glue or paint won't matter as you lay down a vapor pad and then the floor.
So decide what product you want in the future. If it were mine I would scrape with hot water get it clean and leave it until the funds came around to do it. I think painting is more cost that gets covered up and work that will get un done.

Sorry, when I said tile, I was referring to the floating subfloor tiles for basements like you mentioned. I’m still undecided if I will go with those, or the stuff that comes on a roll. Decisions decisions!

I just did this.

Home Depot sells Henry adhesive remover in the aisle with VCT tiles. You mix it with water, spread on the floor and it softens the glue.

I then scrapped it up with a 6" razor blade on a handle, use plenty of blades. A little time consuming, but very little mess at the end.

I will check this out, thank you!



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[Jazz1]

Keep in mind whatever you install you will likely replace in your lifetime.
No help on the glue but #1 son installed vinyl plank flooring throughout in his basement past winter. That stuff is so easy to work with.

 

[Garage Flooring]

Keep in mind whatever you install you will likely replace in your lifetime.
No help on the glue but #1 son installed vinyl plank flooring throughout in his basement past winter. That stuff is so easy to work with.

How big is the rec room?

 

[G-Ram]

How big is the rec room?

15’ x 18’

Keep in mind whatever you install you will likely replace in your lifetime.

No help on the glue but #1 son installed vinyl plank flooring throughout in his basement past winter. That stuff is so easy to work with.

Good to know! The easier the better haha


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[The Cobbler]

a good quality scraper like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/Roberts-10...555818&hash=item28183c48c4:g:DI8AAOSwHcdcgTcy with lots of blades & muscle will work well.
if you're laying a glue down floor you need it to be smoothed, a click floor wont be as fussy

 

[trbomax]

I faced a situation like that a few years ago on a porch floorI got about like yours and then rented a hd floor sander with 24 grit disks.Get som extra disks because they will load up.Have a helper work close to the sander with a shop-vac, picking up all the residue,this will help with the loading issues.

 

[Slowgsr]

Why not build a subfloor now while its up? Roll out some dmx foundation wrap, then tapcon down some 5/8 t&g osb.

 

[Garage Flooring]

If it were me I would go find some carpet remnants lay it down as is until you have a good long term solution

 

[Cougar67]

I just did this.

Home Depot sells Henry adhesive remover in the aisle with VCT tiles. You mix it with water, spread on the floor and it softens the glue.

I then scrapped it up with a 6" razor blade on a handle, use plenty of blades. A little time consuming, but very little mess at the end.

This is why I love this place. I never knew that product existed. I would have rented a diamond grinder. LOL.

I'd probably just get the cheapest peel n stick vinyl planks that Lumber Liquidators has on sale. sometimes it's as little as 59 cents per square foot. You can give the glue some oomph with Henry's Self Stick Tile Primer.

 

[K13]

Seems odd to me to have pulled up the carpet when you are not ready to replace it with something appropriate. Was there a major issue with the carpet?

 

[gungatim]

I bet he figured it was a normal install, not glued. WTH would somebody glue carpet like that? was there even any padding? it's not hard to nail tack strips down and stretch the carpet like normal, that's how my basement is done...

at any rate, my suggestion is those 5x5 osb subfloors with the plastic dimples on the bottom, not sure what they are called, but it's like a floating subfloor for basements. no need to even bother with scraping the glue.

 

[mike93lx]

I bet he figured it was a normal install, not glued. WTH would somebody glue carpet like that? was there even any padding? it's not hard to nail tack strips down and stretch the carpet like normal, that's how my basement is done...

at any rate, my suggestion is those 5x5 osb subfloors with the plastic dimples on the bottom, not sure what they are called, but it's like a floating subfloor for basements. no need to even bother with scraping the glue.

Dri core is at least one brand. Not sure if there are others

 

[G-Ram]

I bet he figured it was a normal install, not glued. WTH would somebody glue carpet like that? was there even any padding? it's not hard to nail tack strips down and stretch the carpet like normal, that's how my basement is done...

at any rate, my suggestion is those 5x5 osb subfloors with the plastic dimples on the bottom, not sure what they are called, but it's like a floating subfloor for basements. no need to even bother with scraping the glue.

No padding, just carpet glued down right to the cement. I was looking real hard at the rolls of underlay with the dimples, but I agree with you about the subfloor tiles. That will be the way I go. Doing drywall this week hopefully and then onto the floor! Thanks for the advice.

Seems odd to me to have pulled up the carpet when you are not ready to replace it with something appropriate. Was there a major issue with the carpet?

Thank you so much for the helpful and informative post. We are a young family on a budget and slowly fixing up the basement as funds allow. I really don’t see how that is so hard to understand? Also we had some issues with the washing machine/sump and the basement flooded. Basements, carpet, and water don’t really mix. Anyways I hope this response is satisfactory for you.


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[mike93lx]

Make sure you keep the drywall off the concrete by at least 0.5" and use PT for anything wood that needs to touch the concrete