If you want to redesign your carpeted staircase, then of course you have to remove the carpet first. Depending on how the stairs are to be designed afterwards, the carpet adhesive must also be completely removed. You can find out how you should ideally proceed in the following article.
Remove the surface of the carpet
The first thing you should do is remove the surface of the carpet from the stairs. To do this, cut it into narrow strips and pull it off. If the removal does not work so well, you can also scrape off the carpet in portions. The stronger the glue underneath, the narrower you should cut the strips so that they can be peeled off.
Determine the type of adhesive used
After the carpet is removed that far, you need to check the exposed surface and determine which adhesive was used here. It becomes easy when it comes to double-sided adhesive tape. Because the residues can be easily removed with cleaning agents that are mixed with solvents. However, if there is a layer of paint on the steps, this could damage it. If the carpet was completely laid on the stairs, then the type of adhesive is important to know, because this is crucial for the choice of the means of removal.
Remove the tools required for the carpet
Before you begin peeling off the carpet on the stairs, you should have the following tools and materials ready:
- Protective gloves
- Eye and respiratory protection
- Root brush
- Cloths or rags
- Steel wool
- Grinding machine
- box cutter
- spatula
- Hot air dryer
- electric stripping machine
- Sandblasting machine
However, depending on the adhesive or substrate, it may well be that not all aids are required or may not be used at all.
Usable cleaning agents
It could be possible, but unfortunately this is usually very rare, that the carpet was fixed with a water-soluble adhesive. In such a case, it is sufficient to soak the glue for 24 hours with warm water and then simply remove it with a scraper. In all other cases, other cleaning agents must be used as follows:
- acetone
- Effectiveness for removal can be tested with a drop of nail polish remover
- Stain is used on wooden steps
- very aggressive and only to be used with protection
- Alcohol dissolves many chemical adhesives
- can then be removed with a hard brush
- Car brake cleaner is an insider tip because it does not attack paint
Remove loose and partially fixed carpet
If carpets, mostly on wooden stairs, but sometimes also on stone or concrete stairs, are only fixed with adhesive tape or point gluing, the system should be explored at the first stage. First, the fastening strips and the edge profile must be removed. If there are no screws, glued profiles can be loosened by heating with a heat gun or a hairdryer.
After recognizing the adhesive pattern, all loose carpet surfaces are cut out and removed. The stuck-on carpet areas remain. They have to be puttied off piece by piece, whereby warming the adhesive solution can also be helpful here.
Remove fully taped carpet
A similar principle is most effective for fully glued carpets, which is carried out by hand using a carpet stripper. It is used to mill off the carpet in strips on the individual steps. It is important to separate the adhesive layer from the substrate so that step damage such as breaking out of the step edges is avoided.
Chemical solvents can be applied to an insensitive stair substructure, for example made of concrete. They degrade both the pile and the underside of the carpet and the adhesive. However, when removing carpets with chemical help, attention must be paid to respiratory and eye protection as well as good ventilation of the stairwell. With a sharply ground spatula or scraper, heated adhesive residues can be easily removed from the steps.
When pulling off or stripping individual carpet strips, try out the best pulling direction. Depending on the carpet and type of adhesive, changing direction can often simplify the work and speed it up.