How do I remove THIN layer of carpet glue from concrete?

Question

The folks who owned this house before us were the cheapest people around. They glued carpet to our concrete floor with a very thin layer of glue. Now, I'm having a terrible time scraping it off. I tried using some adhesive remover we got from Lowe's, but it doesn't really seem to be having any effect other than making it wet :(

My local hardware stores include: Locke & Lowe's. There's also a local store that rents tools, but I'm not sure the extent of their selection, I was able to rent an auger there once for digging fence poles, just as an example.

Any suggestions on solvents? Tools?

Answer 1

Tool rental places probably rent concrete grinders for big jobs like refinishing concrete floors and then you can use a sander that get get into corners.

Floor Grinder

Concrete Sander

You can probably rent one or both of these, depending on the amount of glue. If it's just spotty you can probably use the hand sander.

Like I said, these are for professionally prepare floors for concrete finishing. If it is thin you might try belt sander or palm sander, and buy a sampling of sand papers and see which works best.

Belt Sander

Palm Sander

Answer 2

We ended up using Krud Kutter Adhesive Remover, several pots of boiling water combined with a sturdy long handled floor scraper (& elbo grease) followed by a large orbital sander with 60 grit sanding screens.

This still didn't get all of the adhesive off :( but we have enough off and it's smooth enough for us to paint the floor, based on what I've been told & read online.

Hopefully, this will be helpful for someone else later on :)