Eckard's has years of experience removing and handling carpet, old hardwood, old tile and sheet vinyl. Each can be complicated and arduous.
If new is to go in, old needs to come out. Sometimes it’s no big deal, other times it becomes a nightmare. Taking up old flooring really is one of those things that you really can’t know how it’s going to go until you get into it. Unfortunately, we can’t get into it until we commit to replacing it! It’s a good thing that we’ve done enough projects that not much really catches us off guard anymore. Even the toughest demo work can be handled by our awesome install crews. Here’s how we handle taking up different products:
Carpet over pad is the easiest product to remove. Just cut it into 3' to 4’ strips with a box cutter & just pull it off the floor. Roll it up into neat bundles & move on to the next phase. Taking up carpet over pad is more of a hassle than anything & is one of the things many folks take care of themselves to save a little on the overall cost. Usually, if you wrap those bundles up neatly & put them out at the road, trash services will take them away no problem. If you leave a big floppy heaping mess of rug out there, you might find it stays around a while.
Glue down carpet is a little tougher. By a little tougher, I mean it might just be adhered so well that it takes chunks of concrete with it when it comes up. Again, we’ve seen it all, but usually it’s not so tough that a team of qualified installers can’t handle it. And by handle it I mean cutting it into 4” strips & ripping it up the old fashioned way.
Old glued down hardwood can be tough, but nothing a good hammer drill & some ear plugs can’t fix. It’s a loud process, but wood can generally come up fairly well. There will be splinters & shards left over in the old glue that need to be hand scraped and old adhesive residue that needs to be sealed down. Feather finish is a floor patching compound specifically formulated for this process.
Tile is the toughest. Whereas hardwood pulls up in manageable strips when the right tools are used, tile will absolutely disintegrate into sharp pieces when removed. Actually removing the tile itself is the first, easy step of the process. The hard part is grinding down & scraping off the old thinset mortar that held the tile in place. Thinset mortar is a type of concrete that is used to install tile & the old leftovers must be dealt with before any new flooring can be installed. We grind it. We chisel it. It makes dust & noise. But it has to come up, the subfloor has to be smooth for the new wood to adhere. Taking up tile is a tough job, but the guys know the process & come prepared with diamond tipped blades & stiff backs.
Laminate isn’t as hard as some types of flooring & we don’t charge the same way we do for carpet, wood or tile removal. For now, for the purpose of using our calculator, plug your square footage into the carpet calculator to get a budget, but in reality when we look at your space we will put an estimate together based on how much time we think it might take the guys to remove the old product. This is another good labor item many folks decide to take care of themselves as it is a job many folks can do themselves.
If you have a sheet vinyl product in the space we are considering renovating with wood, many times it can stay right where it is. Ridgeline adhesive can adhere perfectly well to existing sheet vinyl, given the old vinyl is well adhered to the subfloor. If the old vinyl is loose, it needs to come up. If we think there is mildew under the old vinyl, it’s potentially a good idea to come up. But going through the effort & expense of taking up old sheet vinyl is not always necessary. We can help you make this distinction when we come out to look at your space.