Tool for removing carpet pad staples

The question is, did i have to? And does the answer change if it's carpet being put back into the room vs hardwood into the room?

I could see potentially although i don't believe it myself that you wouldn't notice them under new underlay and carpet but i have to assume they must be removed if hardwood is being put in. Also the stairs were worse. They use staples to actually hold the carpet down on each stair. Especially under the lip of each stair and into the vertical part between stairs.

Pulling the carpet off was ok but pieces of carpet were left stuck under nearly all of those staples. To me it seemed like each one of those would have been a lump under the new carpet so i pulled them all. Is that the normal procedure or would it have been fine if they'd just stapled new carpet over it. And my stairs hang out into the open on one side so the carpet wraps around the end of each stair. They must have used 20 staples on each of these small areas.

They were so dense right at the corner that i doubt the new installer would have been able to drive more staples in if i hadn't pried them out. Appreciate any opinions that people have. Last edited by Kevinck on Sep 26th, pm, edited 1 time in total. Get to work.

Not sure what methods you used but channel lock pliers makes the task pretty simple - but still requires time. Just grip staple and roll the pliers using the rounded head as leverage. As the others have said Take them all out. At least, that was my experience in our old house reno. You don't want them in either case. You can feel them with the carpet unless you use a thick underpad, and it's bad for the hardwood as hardwood really needs a smooth and stable surface without metal bumps in it.

It's actually pretty easy to do with a typical office staple remover. You can take a staple out in about two seconds. Mix a solution of one tsp. Dish detergent and two cups warm water in a bucket.

One of these tools is a floor scraper. Before using an adhesive removing solution, use a floor scraper to remove as much of the stuck underlay as possible. Installers gluing carpet directly to a concrete floor. When you want to remove your glued down carpet at home, to do the job faster, more efficiently, you should look for an expert to help you out.

Carpet installers use strong mastic that doesn't deteriorate when they glue down carpets, and they often use more than is really needed, both of which spell bad news for you when you want to remove the carpet. Using a sharp utility knife, cut the carpet into managable strips or squares. It's the same thickness give or take but more like moderately dense foam.

You will need a few tools to remove the carpet pad stuck on the cement floor. If the carpet had an attached cushion, it's prob'ly left on the floor now. Take the underlay from one of the corners and pull it up from the floor. Remove the carpet glue after removing old carpet. The mastic used does not deteriorate, and this makes it difficult to remove the carpet when the need arises. Most professional carpet installers usually use strong mastic to glue down carpets on the floor.

A densified pad is necessary for this type of installation. Carpet can be directly glued to the floor, or carpet can be glued to a pad that is itself glued to the floor. Once you remove the carpet and padding from a floor, odds are you'll be left with some areas on the plywood subfloor that have carpet glue stuck to it.

My husband and I just went through the painful staple pulling process a few months ago. Its tiring but it sure is worth it! Oh, my gosh, yes! We have carpeting—I hate carpeting! Especially disgusting was the carpet on the stairs to the basement. No nice hardwood underneath, so it was roughly staples and nails to pull. I still have to go back and pull some more, sand it all down and paint the darn things. Carpet has no place in a home with animals. Your stairs look wonderful! I painted my basement stairs white.

Turns out I really like it. I was thinking white too—with maybe some random colors on some risers just to shake things up and have some fun with it. Good to know I can get 10 years out of it—thanks, Ellen! Your proposal of a new runner on the stairs intrigued me and I was seriously thinking of pursuing it on my uncarpeted oak stairs. Oh no! And Clara and Burger both seem to have better traction on rugs than hardwoods in general Burger especially slides around when he runs.

My best friend has two kids under 4 and she just got a runner installed after her little one slipped down and banged himself up the whole way her wood stairs, so her thought is that falls seem to happen either way, which I tend to agree with — but the runner at least softens things if they do occur.

I definitely feel your staple-pulling pain. In fact there are still a few stubborn ones I have yet to finish prying out. Once I get the motivation though, our plan is to paint the risers white and sand and re-stain the treads in a nice dark finish. I wanted to pipe up about something that came to mind when i saw your new house has stairs.

He healed from that instance but the damage was done. Last year he was 9 he re-injured himself and had to have pretty serious back surgery. Lesson learned! Good work getting rid of the carpet and painting. I almost lost my mind painting our stairwell, and to be honest, am less than happy with the results. Maybe I just needed more practice. It was crazy hard! Any chance someone could help me understand how to stabilize a ladder while on the stairs?

We would LOVE to paint our stairwell, but we are terrified of the idea of putting a ladder on the stairs, climbing up, and painting with a long pole! How does it work?? Especially when you want to preserve the wood as much as possible…. Dem staples… oh, and those medieval carpet spikes that hide in the crevices.

I have removed carpet from stairs and the accompanying thousands of staples. It is all worth it when it is done, but pretty much makes you want to cry when you are doing it. I love how Burger wanted to hang out with you guys while you were working on the stairs.

Haha what a cutie! Hoping, for you, that the answer is yes, but did you remove the garage-to-kitchen-steps carpet? Hahah, no! Totally forgot about those! Hence, new carpet until we can afford to spend more to make it nicer:. Beautiful wood! Curious, did you guys consider leaving the blue foam padding? Are you going to replace it, or go padding-less? The reveal photo of the carpet-less stairs made me breathe a sigh of relief. Nail gun! Oh goodness I can join in on the staple removing agony!

Last week I ripped out our completely carpeted stairs to refinish them and the amount of staples I took out one. Did I mention I forgot to wear gloves?

Blister city. I felt like we were never going to get all those staples out — our whole house was under reno, trying to get everything completed before the bebe was born, and it took us days to get staple-lee stairs. We ended up with taupe walls, white runners, and black treads.. This all looks great! Wow, looks great! So strange! I think carpet on stairs can be just as slippery, if not more so, than wood stairs.

Aw thanks Emily! Will keep you posted for sure! I have to say, socks on carpet can be scary slippery, although I imagine socks on hardwood to be similarly scary.

I am talented enough to usually fall UP the stairs though, rather than down. We removed carpet from our living room, dining room, hall way, and 3 bedrooms in one day last weekend! What a chore! We still have to decide on what to do with carpet in the basement. I am for certain I am removing it from the stairs and replacing it with just a runner, where did you get yours? Also, just in case you were thinking we were done with carpet removal.. Sigh…I am just loving this house more and more.

I feel your pain! Our entire main floor of our house was covered in plush pink carpet when we bought it. Removing all those staples was so tedious but totally worth it! The hardwood floors underneath were in excellent shape. Everyone once in a while though, we still find a random staple. Sooooo many staples…. You got really lucky with the condition of the stairs under the carpet — it could have been ugly. They can be extremely slippery and dangerous.