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I'm trying to remove carpet from a small closet in our bathroom (at most 3.5 ft by 3.5 ft). I started to remove it and it looks to have been glued around the perimeter. What's the easiest way to remove it? I recently bought a oscillating multi-tool so I'm wondering if that would work to loosen up the edges.

-M

UPDATE: I lucked out -- only part of the carpet was glued... the rest was actually nailed in and came up easy.

That being said, as a future homeowner, I'd like to hear suggestions for how to tackle this type of issue in the future.

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    What kind of surface is underneath and what do you plan on having there afterward? (In other words, how destructive can we be? :)
    – Niall C. ♦
    Oct 13, 2010 at 2:30
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    @niall I'm planning to replace it with identical carpet. The subflooring beneath it is just standard plywood... nothing special.
    – Mike B
    Oct 13, 2010 at 2:50

3 Answers 3

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First, cut away the non-glued part with a craft knife or carpet knife. Next, pull individual strands of the pile away from the mesh using a pliers. Optionally, sand down the remaining bits of the carpet using your multi-tool. Finally (and also optionally), patch any damage to the plywood subfloor with wood filler.

The last two steps are optional because it's in a small closet where nobody's going to notice any slight unevenness in the floor.

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I had some low pile carpet that was glued down to the subfloor in an addition of my house -- it was one of the first things I took out. (although, I didn't get around to re-laying floor 'til some time after ... but the carpet was so nasty, it had to go, as it was near a not-quite secured door, and a bird managed to get in there and die)

I ended up cutting the carpet into managable strips (about 2-3 feet wide), then getting under it with something similar to a garden edger. (but it had a flat blade, not curved ... looks more like this 'scraper') I'm not sure what the tool was sold as ... I was storing my step-dad's gardening and other tools while he was stationed overseas.

It came up fairly easily, but there were globs of glue that I did some further scraping / belt sander / etc before laying new flooring (a bamboo floating floor)

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I scraped up sections of carpet with an ice scraper. I then poured small amounts of lacquer thinner on the wood floor and waited a few minutes for the glue to soften. I used the scraper to get it clean to the wood. Caution was used with flammability issues and fumes but it easily came up with this method.

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