Remove glue for/from carpet padding from wood floors

[gregpark]

Creamy or chunky?

[gregpark]

The ends are not T&G. Never were. If you pull it out of a closet you'll being playing hell too get the finish to match without refinishing in total and you don't want to do that because you can't fake old. To splice in boards in such short run is not the answer, too many butt joints down the hall. You'd end up replacing all of the hallway flooring and back to the patina matching problem. It's very difficult to fake old wear and finish, even for a pro. I would inset a balanced border and leave as much original as possible. From the pic he hallway appears to be the perfect candidate. Start tearing out your old floor boards is opening a can of worms. My advice to you is to take the advice from someone who's been there a thousand times. A do it yourselfer can inset a feature strip border. Snap lines, set up a fence and set the depth of your skill saw to the flooring thickness and use a new blade. At the corners I use a Fien multi tool but a sharp chisel will work. An 8' 1x6 of rose wood or walnut will give you 40' of 1" border material. No nails, just cut it tight, yellow glue and tap it in with a block and hammer

[masraum]

Originally Posted by gregpark

The ends are not T&G. Never were. If you pull it out of a closet you'll being playing hell too get the finish to match without refinishing in total and you don't want to do that because you can't fake old. To splice in boards in such short run is not the answer, too many butt joints down the hall. You'd end up replacing all of the hallway flooring and back to the patina matching problem. It's very difficult to fake old wear and finish, even for a pro. I would inset a balanced border and leave as much original as possible. From the pic he hallway appears to be the perfect candidate. Start tearing out your old floor boards is opening a can of worms. My advice to you is to take the advice from someone who's been there a thousand times. A do it yourselfer can inset a feature strip border. Snap lines, set up a fence and set the depth of your skill saw to the flooring thickness and use a new blade. At the corners I use a Fien multi tool but a sharp chisel will work. An 8' 1x6 of rose wood or walnut will give you 40' of 1" border material. No nails, just cut it tight, yellow glue and tap it in with a block and hammer

Bolded text - interesting, and good to know. I'd just assumed...

You guys are probably more familiar than I am. Is the floor likely to be just the joists and then the floor on top of that with nothing else, or is there likely to be another layer under the T&G boards?

Also, at some point, someone sprayed a thin layer of spray foam insulation on the bottom of the house from the crawl space. I assume that would make it more of a pain to tear out flooring and replace.

I'll probably come back to you at some point with more questions about this solution. I believe that I understand what you're saying above.

1 Cut out the strip that includes the ugly strip of butt joints.
2 Get a strip of a different, decorative wood and cut it to tightly fit into the slot from step one.
3 glue and hammer into place.

I think previously you mentioned some other trim around the area to match and make the patch look more like a feature.

I'll take better photos at some point in the future and ask for recommendations (and run them past the "boss")

[masraum]

Originally Posted by gregpark

Creamy or chunky?

I've heard the best option is a 63/37 mix.



I have heard of using peanut butter to clean things before. I can't remember specifically what. I've always assumed that it was mostly due to the oil content. I suppose the ground nuts may offer a light scrub in addition to the oil.

[gregpark]

It's certainly possible that the fir you're walking on is your subfloor. It would still be possible to do a feature border but the method changes a bit. The more pics the better for me to see what's going on. Do you have access to underneath the hall floor?

[masraum]

Originally Posted by gregpark

It's certainly possible that the fir you're walking on is your subfloor. It would still be possible to do a feature border but the method changes a bit. The more pics the better for me to see what's going on. Do you have access to underneath the hall floor?

OK. I've been assuming that the surface that we see is the only flooring, but I had no real reason to think that.

I haven't seen any nails in the flooring other than the thresholds and the line down the front hall. I've been assuming someone changed or fixed something at some point and did a lousy job.

I won't be out there for another week and a half. The next time that I get out, I'll take more pics. Before we do anything, we're going to get someone to come out and work on the foundation/leveling the house. I'm sure that will change the way lots of stuff in the house fits together.

We won't be making any big changes until after March, but we are starting the ideas/planning stages now.

Thanks for all of the help.

[Zeke]

Steve, you asked about a 'cripple wall'. It's a line of short studs that support bearing walls under the subfloor and on top of many piers or a running foundation (grade beam).



AFA stripping out floors in closets, I prefer to carpet them or just lay some subtle vinyl. Most closet floors I have seen are covered with things being stored in the closet. Not a place to show off beauty. Simply function and something easy to vacuum.

The thing is, wood strip flooring in closets will run the same direction as the main room. So if the flooring direction is perpendicular to a short closet, all you will find in there are "shorts" or drops from longer boards fitted in main rooms.

Use it all (another way of saying get the best yield out of your material) means just that. Put the left over stuff in the closets. But one can always salvage some useable flooring from closets if fitted with the same flooring.

@Greg the floor man: I sent you a complimentary PM and here I would like to say that many times a closet floor will be as abused as main room flooring. People are so gentle when shoving stuff around in a closet. In my case the floors in the main rooms are not perfect, so the closet stuff wove in and matched up pretty well.

[masraum]

Thanks, sir. Lots of good info.

[masraum]

I haven't finished yet, but I finally, this evening got my start on cleaning the floors upstairs. I cleaned a small area with the Bostik Ultimate adhesive remover (like the bottle on the left) and it seemed to do a good job without affecting the existing finish.

Then I finished pulling the tack strips and did some more prep (make sure that I had as much of the pad removed that was stuck the the floor) and swept all of the crap out of the way. I'll, hopefully, get it all cleaned tomorrow. I'm pouring a little cleaner on the stuff, then letting it sit a few mins and then scrubbing it off with a cheap towel. It takes a fair amount of rubbing, but it comes up. The stuff's got a strong smell. I hope there's a stiff breeze tomorrow when I'm cleaning to keep the fumes moving out of the house. Fortunately, the stuff is strong, but doesn't smell particularly bad.

the remover


What I'm cleaning.

[gregpark]

Good deal, you bought the liquid. The Bostik towels are only good for smudges. Apply the Bostik, scrape with a putty knife and clean up the residual with paper towels, lots of paper towels and more solvent. A rag will just keep smearing the nasty pad glue. And ventilate the room well, anything that works that well will be popping brain cells

[pmax]

You'll never get all the decayed varnish, stain, crud, excrement, gum, varnish, shellac, glue etc out without this.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by gregpark

Good deal, you bought the liquid. The Bostik towels are only good for smudges. Apply the Bostik, scrape with a putty knife and clean up the residual with paper towels, lots of paper towels and more solvent. A rag will just keep smearing the nasty pad glue. And ventilate the room well, anything that works that well will be popping brain cells

Right. I figured that if I bought the towels, I'd need a couple of cases of them. Hell, I probably should have bought two bottles just in case, but I don't think I'll need them.

That's what I was thinking about the fumes as well, they can't be healthy.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by pmax

You'll never get all the decayed varnish, stain, crud, excrement, gum, varnish, shellac, glue etc out without this.

For now, I just want to get off a little glue around the perimeter so they are presentable and not tacky in spots.

So you don't think I should go this route?





This is the blurb that came along with the photo on facebook.

Traces of Texas reader Sean Forkner graciously sent in this fantastic photo of carpenters planning a floor with old-fashioned hand planes in Austin back in the 1890s. Sean found it while going through some old boxes at the Carpenter's Union Hall. Interesting comments on the back:
"1890, Dick Coons House, 14th @ West Ave
The First 8 Hour Job in Austin
Carpenter work was daywork $2.50 to $3.00 per day for 8 hours work, which was the prevailing wage for Union men on all 10 hour jobs at the time."

[gregpark]

Great photo. I would love to hand those stand up planes to my guys just to see the look on their faces

[pmax]

Originally Posted by masraum

For now, I just want to get off a little glue around the perimeter so they are presentable and not tacky in spots.

So you don't think I should go this route?

Then use a handheld.



Chemicals and paper towels are just too much work assuming they are even effective.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by pmax

Then use a handheld.



Chemicals and paper towels are just too much work assuming they are even effective.

The chemicals worked, and even smell pretty good, although I took breaks and had all of the windows open with a good breeze. I assume anything with a smell that strong that got up the old glue can't be good to breathe long term.

I don't think paper towels would have worked, the wood was too rough and it took too much pressure. It also would have taken far, far to long to rub using elbow grease and a rag. I did use a rag, but used my feet. I can apply a lot more pressure with the ball of one foot more easily (without being sore for days) than I could with my arm. I stood on the rag and used it to "wipe" the stuff off. On particularly tough spots, I did the twist, rotated around the ball of my foot while applying pressure. It worked like a charm and didn't really take that long.

[pmax]

Sounds like you could have just left the crud there and apply some foot traffic till it works its way into the house for additional character !

[masraum]

Originally Posted by pmax

Sounds like you could have just left the crud there and apply some foot traffic till it works its way into the house for additional character !

For several reasons, no, that wouldn't have worked, not least of which is that the stuff didn't come up without the chemicals.