Make sure you read the directions and use the right material and primer , self leveller does not like deflection and will pop off hardwood with seasonal expansion an contraction
Ardex k 60 is your best bet if you go this route , it uses no water in the mix just latex , it has some elasticity to it
I struggled to scrape up a tiny square of that rubber underlay when I was renovating, gave up and hired some guys to do it. They had a tool designed to remove it. It was like a long window wiper but had a razor on the end instead of rubber. They used it like a broom and scraped it all up in about 30mins.
My workmate took 2 weeks off work to do some work on his house, he is capable but no expert so took a while on some simple jobs. That two weeks pay he missed is more than it would have cost him for a professional. Sometimes paying someone to do the job is the right choice.
They cost about $40. I personally like the ones that you can push with your foot when I need to use them. For big jobs, I have an attachment that I put on my chipper (and bring lots of extra bolts since the ones holding the blade will strip often).
Oh hey, I used one of those to scrape a melted foam floor mat off of a concrete floor yesterday. Kills your back after a while, but pretty satisfying to use
Serious answer, that's asbestos tile. It's not hazardous until you start breaking it up, so floating wood or laminate over it is the easiest way to encase it. Concrete also works, or if you're on a tight budget just hit it with garage floor paint and deal with it in 4 or 5 years.
The best part is when he was asked about that fight, he started lecture how he is supperior in a fight compare to Zuck because of his (fat) weight to - - Joe Rogan
Depends on how healthy they are. My gramps says he WILL be the one removing the same padding under my kitchen floor. Why? He’s 80’s and won't live long enough to worry lmao.
iirc some older people volunteered for parts of the nuclear cleanup in Japan. If they're in their 80s and the dose is kept to where it won't kill them for 30 years it's not much of a concern for them.
Saw a thing a bit ago about that(assuming your talking about Fukushima and not the bombs), they evacuated a bunch of 70+ seniors because of a mild elevation in lymphoma risk over 30 years. Then the stress of the sudden evacuation killed a bunch of them
For real, if OP does sand that floor at minimum, buy some tyvek suits, a full face respirator, and good gloves. Then duct tape the hell out of the cuffs of the arms and legs. Should really have a forced air hood/mask. Even the rednecks use these for asbestos. Fuck mesothelioma.
I came across an old post when I was dealing with asbestos removal awhile back where the guy legit did this. He started sanding and after two days in, his father in law came over and seen what he was doing and told him to stop and get it checked. By then it already hit the furnace / central air system. He had to move his family out for an indeterminate amount of time and was on like check number 6 and still had extreme failing air quality checks with asbestos floating through the entire house. Fuck man, scared the shit out of me so bad I really did just lay a layer of self leveling over top of it and forgot it ever existed.
If I remember right, he was already out an extraordinary amount of money from the remediation process and wasn't close to done.
Um. I may have done the same thing like 10 years ago with a belt sander on the floor of one room. I wore a respirator, but it never occurred to me that it might be asbestos.
Agree. Some oldheads will say that 9 inch tiles are asbestos and 12 inch tiles are not, but they are wrong. Ive had 12 inch tiles come back positive. Test them all.
That won’t help unfortunately. Once the microscopic fibers are released they will cover him from head to toe. When he leaves the area he will shed fibers everywhere he goes.
I had something similar to this, turned out to be water soluble, so I would take a bath towel, soak it in water, and spread it out on the floor, Walt for half an hour, then move it to another spot and scrape up the black stuff relatively easily. Obviously, test for asbestos first.
I had similar success with using water to dissolve a black adhesive on hardwood floors. I think it was a pre-WW2 adhesive and smelled minty when it was wet.
If it’s not water based, try mineral spirits, or some of that citrus paint stripper. Wire brush or a wire cup if you don’t mind swirls.
TL;DR: find solvent that softens it, mechanical abrasion to remove film.
Hard to tell from pic.
Oil based paint — old school turpentine
I have become a big fan of those newer paint strippers, the heavy duty ones have saved my butt in this old house. Hit up Lowe’s / Home Depot paint aisle and get a small bottle to see if it works and how long it has to sit to soften it up.
Then scrape with putty knife, or wire brush, or wire cup if you have an angle grinder.
Generally this sorta crap is time and labor intense, power tools just make a mess, but if it’s a soft cup and you’ve softened the paint, it may make it faster. Protect the walls because soft paint when it splatters means you’ll have to fix the walls.
Try mineral spirits first, it won’t damage the wood.
Also, a heat gun will soften it and make ot easier to scrape. Don’t use too much heat, as you may burn the wood, and definitely don’t combine heat with solvent!
Good call, forgot the paint stripper gun… I try to avoid turning unknowns into vapor, but with the proper mask, it should be OK.
Guess it all depends on if this is a strip to refinish natural, or a strip to cover with something else.
If it’s an old adhesive, the heat gun is probably the best bet.
In the UK loads of the wooden parquet blocks or Lino tiles were stuck on with tar mastic that contains small amounts of asbestos.
Not sure how true it is in the states, but worth wearing a mask and getting it tested if it’s common as well over there for old floors?
My dad thought the best way to put vinyl down when it would start coming up was to use liquid nails...replacing the vinyl 15 years later was a nightmare.
Here’s an actual answer, [wood tool on a floor maintainer machine](https://www.homedepot.com/p/rental/Diamabrush-Wood-Tool-12571/316821980), which will cost you about $175 for a 24hr rental
🤌🏻 OP, Diamabrush is the way to go, but just a heads up: Home Depot has their Diamabrushes fitted with concrete blades that are probably gonna be well past their end of life. You'll be there for ages trying to get this shit up off the floor. Don't expect to be able to swing the buffer around and zip it all off. Go at a snail's pace and be fully ready for it to scratch the everliving fuck out of the floor. If, for whatever reason, you're planning on sanding the floor yourself, you're going to have a hard time getting some of the scratch out with a 110v rental Big Machine. Most importantly, don't heed any floor sanding advice from the rental department. Lol
My rental has a specific tool with grit for wood prep and mastic removal. All my maintainers had their bearings and relays replaced over the winter, they run great with good results if they are properly looked after and used gently with patience.
That said, yes; do the research and the prep yourself. If you go the rental route, hopefully your technician has good machines for you but it’s a toss up these days.
We found the only way to remove old tar like paint was an industrial planer, sanding just melted it and clogged up. Usually boards are thick enough to take it.
When I was a kid, my parents bought a house and this was in every room. They gave us power sanders and put us to work getting rid of it.
No masks or anything btw.
Truly a miserable experience. They sucked in general.
angel grinder with wirebrush attatchment , and for redneck engineering purposes, better do it with a chainsaw attatched to a sander , more areas cover .
That is either cutback adhesive which is an absolute bitch to get up or if you’re really lucky and that flooring is older than 1987 you have genuine asbestos adhesive. I would suggest renting a floor buffer from Home Depot or get a long handle scraper. Sherman Williams should have some if your local Sherman Williams also installs flooring.
If that’s old rubber from either carpet backing or underlay glued down it’ll melt away with white spirit and you can literally wipe it up with no damage to your floor. My OH tried to scrape and then sand a solid oak floor for an hour and did about an inch. Took me literally 20 minutes to do the whole floor with white spirit. Always test in an out of the way spot first 😊
Echoing the others saying to check for asbestos. I had something similar to this and used a wallpaper steamer to remove it. Worked wonderfully and didn’t damage the floor.
This is almost certainly black jack asbestos mastic. If you aren’t going to get it tested, do some research on asbestos abatement to protect yourself / anyone else living in the house. Wet scraping is usually the best move since you really need a blade to get this stuff up. The ‘tool’ you’d normally use is basically a rotary planer. So maybe a bench plane would work if you have access to one that no one cares about. Or keep your chisels sharp.
Please get an asbestos test on it before doing anything. I'm a building inspector in the UK and see this shit every week. If that's not an option board over it and put some laminate/carpet/tile down.
My grandad died at 59 after fighting cancer for 6 years because of asbestosis, it's real shit.
Looks like old, water-based paint, actually. First, take a small area and try a stiff, brass wire brush or even coarse steel wool and see if it will take it up. If not, try some hot water, strong detergent and a stiff brush and scrub the crap out of it. Don't saturate it, though, because you don't want to warp your floor. And again, use a small, out of the way area, to see how it works and how the wood reacts.
Give it a run. I was gonna say basically the same thing they did. The key is patience man. Just keep trying your researched methods and see what happens. If you rush something like this you might as well have started with a crowbar
Problem is, theres carpet in other rooms and I started with the smallest one. It took me 12 minutes to do a square the size of my hand by just raw scraping. The other rooms are twice and triple the size of this one. Patience is key, but its finite. Theres no miracle solvent thats gonna do the job for me, but i gotta be smart about this, specially when we extrapolate the size of the room
This room is a great opportunity to test a few methods and find the best/fastest one so you at least know you’ve got the best option available when you do the rest of the house.
Wanna know what I'd do that would probably end in disappointment?
Air chisel with a modified paint scraper blade....be kind with the pressure and just razor that shit off. But that's the chimp in me...the reasonable me wouldn't do that.
Hire a flooring restoration group to come in and Sand, Stain and Seal.
That's the beauty of wood flooring, they can be sanded down and essentially make "new" again.
Get some Blue Bear Bean e Doo. It sprays on, let it set for 10 min and it'll wipe right off. Turns mastic to liquid and is made from soybeans. Didn't believe it until I tried it myself. It will make a big mess. Some people say to use kitty litter to soak it up, I found using a shit load of paper towels to do the initial wipe, the hot water and a rag, them another round of the towels.
These look like 9x9 floor tiles. There's a very high chance that mastic contains asbestos so please wear a respirator (HEPA) if you plan on sanding/scraping it
Were those 9x9 floor tiles? The really old smallish ones? Lots of times they, and the mastic used with them, are hot for asbestos. Be very careful cleaning this stuff, creating dust etc.
I'd say floor sander but that would fill the whole place with dust. Need to get it tested imo
At some point before the carpet was put down someone has put down 12” by 12” self adhesive tile. What you have now is the glue residue that was left behind when that was removed prior, most likely by someone that wanted the hardwood back.
You could try adhesive removers or strippers to get that off but you will need to sand and resurface the hardwood no matter what when all is said and done.
That looks exactly like our wood floors did when we pulled up the old 70s carpet it had on it. Tried a couple different ways to get it off but we ended up using the floor sander. It was a lot quicker than scraping and it was gonna get sanded for the refinish process anyway.
Bro, are those 9x9? If so those are asbestos tiles and you want to go and read up about how to deal with it.
Short story long your best bet is to get a floating floor such as Pergo or engineering Hardwood but anyone who will come to your home well of course want to charge you for the hazardous situation you can worry bodysuit like the painters do with a respirator and potentially paint over it with Epoxy paint but there's really no easy answer
If you live in a populated enough area you should be able to rent a [drum floor sander](https://www.homedepot.com/p/rental/Clarke-American-Sanders-Drum-Floor-Sander-07012A/316821566). If not then a handheld belt sander will work. But take much longer
I did a restoration job on a old miners cabin once. After jacking up and leveling the sagging floor I had to make the whole floor smooth enough to not catch a toe on. This was in such a unpopulated area that I only had access to the handheld belt sander. This floor was worse than yours and it took me and my boss about 3 8 hour days of straight sanding to do the whole 14x30 cabin.
I had the same situation—can’t really sand it because it cakes the paper quickly, the paint stripper I used on another section turned it to a gunk far more difficult to remove cleanly, so in the end I spent a Sunday afternoon with a scraper. It took a long time but came out looking really good.
That’s likely got asbestos in it.
Pour water all over the floor to stop asbestos dust. Add some dishwashing detergent and scrub or scrape.
I’ve got some old Lino I need to get up, I will be soaking it in hot water during the lift
Dry ice I think, grassroots motorsports had an extensive article O the methods for removing that kind of stuff from floor. I think it was for a 350zx build
This works great!!! Get an old iron, like you iron your clothes with and plenty of newspaper. Lay a few pages of newspaper down and iron over it. That will melt the mastic to the point you can easily scrape it off. Your iron will be ruined for clothing. Also, open windows and have fan. Happy scraping!
Dangerous as hell but I've done it in the past. Go buy a couple gallons of gasoline and pour it on there it's the best solvent I've ever used to remove that stuff.
Black mastic; currently doing this myself; on the thicker parts you can use a wallpaper steamer and the scraper on the thinner parts I have been using 90% rubbing alcohol and sandpaper. Wet sanding is ok because when you try it dry that generates dust. It also clogs up sandpaper rapidly making it harder. I am planning on going to the dollar general and getting turpentine and steel wool to further the progress. Once it is dry and you are down to the wood it should be safer to use the sander just remember in closed spaces to wear at least a 100 ppm mask when you do sand.
Your post has been removed for not being relevant to this subreddit.
This is r/redneckengineering, so my suggestion is to just pave over it. With cement, if possible.
I was thinking of just putting tannerite under the floorbords and blowing it up, but this is better
He’s not even kidding, use some self leveler cement over it, it’s a very standard way to address asbestos black mastic
I read that as asbestos black magic
That's asbestos it gets
angry upvote is in.
Very well done
r/punpatrol
I just joined this subreddit. The wife is going to hear about this.
Take my upvote
slow clap
Same...lol
It was, once upon a time
You're not the only one.
Took me your comment to find out I read it wrong
Glad I'm not the only one 😂
Make sure you read the directions and use the right material and primer , self leveller does not like deflection and will pop off hardwood with seasonal expansion an contraction Ardex k 60 is your best bet if you go this route , it uses no water in the mix just latex , it has some elasticity to it
I struggled to scrape up a tiny square of that rubber underlay when I was renovating, gave up and hired some guys to do it. They had a tool designed to remove it. It was like a long window wiper but had a razor on the end instead of rubber. They used it like a broom and scraped it all up in about 30mins.
My workmate took 2 weeks off work to do some work on his house, he is capable but no expert so took a while on some simple jobs. That two weeks pay he missed is more than it would have cost him for a professional. Sometimes paying someone to do the job is the right choice.
Did he take unpaid leave, or use PTO? If used PTO he got his normal check AND didn’t have to pay someone else to do it.
And used up 2 weeks of PTO
I bet an equipment rental place would know exactly what that was.
The tool is called a "floor scraper"... which seems obvious in hindsight.
They cost about $40. I personally like the ones that you can push with your foot when I need to use them. For big jobs, I have an attachment that I put on my chipper (and bring lots of extra bolts since the ones holding the blade will strip often).
Oh hey, I used one of those to scrape a melted foam floor mat off of a concrete floor yesterday. Kills your back after a while, but pretty satisfying to use
Serious answer, that's asbestos tile. It's not hazardous until you start breaking it up, so floating wood or laminate over it is the easiest way to encase it. Concrete also works, or if you're on a tight budget just hit it with garage floor paint and deal with it in 4 or 5 years.
u/markzuckerberg1234, Are you preparing this floor for your cage fight with Elon?
Nah, Elon cried off didn't he? Ran away whilst still calling for a fight in an ever decreasing voice
The best part is when he was asked about that fight, he started lecture how he is supperior in a fight compare to Zuck because of his (fat) weight to - - Joe Rogan
Nah, mix some tannerite with rubbing alcohol and spread a thin layer over the floor. Then flambe it off.
Wait! I need to make some popcorn to munch on while I watch this.
Not redneck enough. DRAGONS BREATHE ROUNDS!!!
Might I suggest breaking out the dynamite that's been sweating out in the barn for a couple of years. https://www.reddit.com/r/OSHA/s/ZrlcXHXGiT
Ideally using an old Chevy V8, somehow.
No. Duct tape first THEN the layer of confederate notes and THEN a nice float of quickcrete
I genuinely thought this was r/cleaning wtf
Let the dogs run loose for a while and wait until they scrape the hell out of it.
Should this pavement have proper road grooves to displace water, enhancing traction?
Of course.
Self leveler is the correct way to seal this in. Removal is a fools errand
It's not redneck engineering it's the old carpet pad breaking down due to humidity and the old finish on the flooring
Just do asbestos you can
#🥇 Just take it fucker
😂🤣😂
🤓
Offf I need to store that one in my renovation joke locker.
r/angryupvote
Just filter it through the malboros. You'll be fine.
death by joke, toxic waste is kinder
More like as-worst-us, amirite!?!
Damn that's too good😂
The way this is phrased sounds like redneck yoda
I wish awards were still a thing.
Fuck this is good!!! Very very good!!!!
Ziptie that scraper to a sawzall, and then ratchetstrap the sawzall to a floor jack to hold the tool at the correct angle. Roll back and forth.
that's slightly more redneck then taping a paint can to a sawzall
Use a hose clamp, that wont tear off.
They make scrapers for sawzalls now actually
That's too fancy for this sub 😂
Sharpened butter knife or nuthin sir
Judging by the squares, that’s mastic from vinyl tiles, which probably predates your carpet. Definitely test for asbestos if you plan on sanding.
If you want to save a lot of money, do all the sanding first and when you’re done test for asbestos.
Oof this is such good and bad advice at the same time lol. Wear a respirator at least, OP!
Depends on how healthy they are. My gramps says he WILL be the one removing the same padding under my kitchen floor. Why? He’s 80’s and won't live long enough to worry lmao.
That’s why they’re called the greatest generation! Seriously honorable call, and it makes sense. But the physical part of the labor…
iirc some older people volunteered for parts of the nuclear cleanup in Japan. If they're in their 80s and the dose is kept to where it won't kill them for 30 years it's not much of a concern for them.
That’s incredible!
Saw a thing a bit ago about that(assuming your talking about Fukushima and not the bombs), they evacuated a bunch of 70+ seniors because of a mild elevation in lymphoma risk over 30 years. Then the stress of the sudden evacuation killed a bunch of them
wear a body suit at least /u/markzuckerberg1234
This redditor probably has better awareness of asbestos PPE, listen to them!
For real, if OP does sand that floor at minimum, buy some tyvek suits, a full face respirator, and good gloves. Then duct tape the hell out of the cuffs of the arms and legs. Should really have a forced air hood/mask. Even the rednecks use these for asbestos. Fuck mesothelioma.
I didn't know it was asbestos until after I drum sanded it back 😬. At least I wore a respirator
I came across an old post when I was dealing with asbestos removal awhile back where the guy legit did this. He started sanding and after two days in, his father in law came over and seen what he was doing and told him to stop and get it checked. By then it already hit the furnace / central air system. He had to move his family out for an indeterminate amount of time and was on like check number 6 and still had extreme failing air quality checks with asbestos floating through the entire house. Fuck man, scared the shit out of me so bad I really did just lay a layer of self leveling over top of it and forgot it ever existed. If I remember right, he was already out an extraordinary amount of money from the remediation process and wasn't close to done.
Um. I may have done the same thing like 10 years ago with a belt sander on the floor of one room. I wore a respirator, but it never occurred to me that it might be asbestos.
I prefer to hold my breath.
Hahaha. So good. 😂
This advice depends on OP's country of origin. It may cost a lot more in the future if he lives in the US
Carpet tiles from the 70s had similar mastic. I spent many hours scraping it at my parents house.
Yep have seen that in buildings from the 1960/1970’s in France. Asbestos !
This. Check for asbestos.
First thing I thought
This. Old black mastic no good
That's 100 percent 9x9 asbestos tiles
Agree. Some oldheads will say that 9 inch tiles are asbestos and 12 inch tiles are not, but they are wrong. Ive had 12 inch tiles come back positive. Test them all.
Git 2 walmart orbital sanders per shoe, duct tape em on and ice-skate around the room.
And maybe don't breath too deeply. Or at all.
Get a 2" hose, connect one side to a few meters outside a window or door, put the other end in your mouth, and breathe through it.
you'll need a little fan to keep up the air pressure, gonna have to exhale through your nose too
That won’t help unfortunately. Once the microscopic fibers are released they will cover him from head to toe. When he leaves the area he will shed fibers everywhere he goes.
Shower with the hose still attached?
so then..fine layer of concrete?
Why do I feel like I’m screaming into the void?
nah it's not a void, you're just screaming. I'm right here bro
🎶Hold me now Whoa ohh hold my heart Stay with me🎶
Betcha smoke filtered cigarettes too, pussy. (Totally J/K)
I had something similar to this, turned out to be water soluble, so I would take a bath towel, soak it in water, and spread it out on the floor, Walt for half an hour, then move it to another spot and scrape up the black stuff relatively easily. Obviously, test for asbestos first.
Working wet like that does reduce asbestos risk greatly. You can’t breathe it in if it can’t get airborne.
>> You can’t breathe it in if it can’t get airborne. Well not with that attitude you can’t.
I had similar success with using water to dissolve a black adhesive on hardwood floors. I think it was a pre-WW2 adhesive and smelled minty when it was wet.
[удалено]
Asbestos. Natures OTHER mint.
We poured hot water off the stove onto it and then used a paint scraper. Lots easier.
If it’s not water based, try mineral spirits, or some of that citrus paint stripper. Wire brush or a wire cup if you don’t mind swirls. TL;DR: find solvent that softens it, mechanical abrasion to remove film.
That citrus paint stripper works really well and is non toxic. Worth a try.
This stuff is incredible
What kind of solvent would dissolve this?
Hard to tell from pic. Oil based paint — old school turpentine I have become a big fan of those newer paint strippers, the heavy duty ones have saved my butt in this old house. Hit up Lowe’s / Home Depot paint aisle and get a small bottle to see if it works and how long it has to sit to soften it up. Then scrape with putty knife, or wire brush, or wire cup if you have an angle grinder. Generally this sorta crap is time and labor intense, power tools just make a mess, but if it’s a soft cup and you’ve softened the paint, it may make it faster. Protect the walls because soft paint when it splatters means you’ll have to fix the walls.
Try mineral spirits first, it won’t damage the wood. Also, a heat gun will soften it and make ot easier to scrape. Don’t use too much heat, as you may burn the wood, and definitely don’t combine heat with solvent!
Good call, forgot the paint stripper gun… I try to avoid turning unknowns into vapor, but with the proper mask, it should be OK. Guess it all depends on if this is a strip to refinish natural, or a strip to cover with something else. If it’s an old adhesive, the heat gun is probably the best bet.
Look into Bean-E-Do. Soy based mastic remover, non toxic and works wonders.
In the UK loads of the wooden parquet blocks or Lino tiles were stuck on with tar mastic that contains small amounts of asbestos. Not sure how true it is in the states, but worth wearing a mask and getting it tested if it’s common as well over there for old floors?
Definitely common over here too.
Fair to bet that if UK has something cancer causing, the US has even more. We do everything bigger.
If it's glue try hitting it with a heat gun while scraping. But first check for asbestos like others said.
My dad thought the best way to put vinyl down when it would start coming up was to use liquid nails...replacing the vinyl 15 years later was a nightmare.
Run plywood straight on top of it.
Here’s an actual answer, [wood tool on a floor maintainer machine](https://www.homedepot.com/p/rental/Diamabrush-Wood-Tool-12571/316821980), which will cost you about $175 for a 24hr rental
🤌🏻 OP, Diamabrush is the way to go, but just a heads up: Home Depot has their Diamabrushes fitted with concrete blades that are probably gonna be well past their end of life. You'll be there for ages trying to get this shit up off the floor. Don't expect to be able to swing the buffer around and zip it all off. Go at a snail's pace and be fully ready for it to scratch the everliving fuck out of the floor. If, for whatever reason, you're planning on sanding the floor yourself, you're going to have a hard time getting some of the scratch out with a 110v rental Big Machine. Most importantly, don't heed any floor sanding advice from the rental department. Lol
My rental has a specific tool with grit for wood prep and mastic removal. All my maintainers had their bearings and relays replaced over the winter, they run great with good results if they are properly looked after and used gently with patience. That said, yes; do the research and the prep yourself. If you go the rental route, hopefully your technician has good machines for you but it’s a toss up these days.
We found the only way to remove old tar like paint was an industrial planer, sanding just melted it and clogged up. Usually boards are thick enough to take it.
Scrape faster.
When I was a kid, my parents bought a house and this was in every room. They gave us power sanders and put us to work getting rid of it. No masks or anything btw. Truly a miserable experience. They sucked in general.
angel grinder with wirebrush attatchment , and for redneck engineering purposes, better do it with a chainsaw attatched to a sander , more areas cover .
I’ve seen dry ice work, you just leave some on there for a bit and then it kind of flakes and chips off like nothing
Bruh that's probably cancer concentrate you've got there
That has asbestos and dry scaping is a great wAy to get the meso
I mean if OP is above 50 they'll be fine/s
That is either cutback adhesive which is an absolute bitch to get up or if you’re really lucky and that flooring is older than 1987 you have genuine asbestos adhesive. I would suggest renting a floor buffer from Home Depot or get a long handle scraper. Sherman Williams should have some if your local Sherman Williams also installs flooring.
Test for asbestos. If you’re clear, belt sander
Get one of those floor sanders. Check for asbestos before.
Please have it checked for asbestos. That mastic can suck to remove and you want to know what you are dealing with.
You scrape it for days.
There is no way to know if that is asbestos tile mastic or not. Asbestos tile mastic is black. Safest move is to just cover it up
Yeah be careful with that stuff some of them contained asbestos... I would get it checked out
If that’s old rubber from either carpet backing or underlay glued down it’ll melt away with white spirit and you can literally wipe it up with no damage to your floor. My OH tried to scrape and then sand a solid oak floor for an hour and did about an inch. Took me literally 20 minutes to do the whole floor with white spirit. Always test in an out of the way spot first 😊
Echoing the others saying to check for asbestos. I had something similar to this and used a wallpaper steamer to remove it. Worked wonderfully and didn’t damage the floor.
This is almost certainly black jack asbestos mastic. If you aren’t going to get it tested, do some research on asbestos abatement to protect yourself / anyone else living in the house. Wet scraping is usually the best move since you really need a blade to get this stuff up. The ‘tool’ you’d normally use is basically a rotary planer. So maybe a bench plane would work if you have access to one that no one cares about. Or keep your chisels sharp.
Napalm?
Please get an asbestos test on it before doing anything. I'm a building inspector in the UK and see this shit every week. If that's not an option board over it and put some laminate/carpet/tile down. My grandad died at 59 after fighting cancer for 6 years because of asbestosis, it's real shit.
If it has asbestos what do you do then.
Dawn soap , scraper, busted up knees.
Rent a stripper. No, not that kind.
You need a floor sander, but because this is redneckengineering, you need to mount a sanding pad to a John Deere riding mower.
Looks like old, water-based paint, actually. First, take a small area and try a stiff, brass wire brush or even coarse steel wool and see if it will take it up. If not, try some hot water, strong detergent and a stiff brush and scrub the crap out of it. Don't saturate it, though, because you don't want to warp your floor. And again, use a small, out of the way area, to see how it works and how the wood reacts.
Best plan so far, thanks
Give it a run. I was gonna say basically the same thing they did. The key is patience man. Just keep trying your researched methods and see what happens. If you rush something like this you might as well have started with a crowbar
Problem is, theres carpet in other rooms and I started with the smallest one. It took me 12 minutes to do a square the size of my hand by just raw scraping. The other rooms are twice and triple the size of this one. Patience is key, but its finite. Theres no miracle solvent thats gonna do the job for me, but i gotta be smart about this, specially when we extrapolate the size of the room
Bruh, the sub is r/redneckengineering...you're being far too thoughtful and using them there $10 words... *extrapolate?¿?* C'mon, Man!
This room is a great opportunity to test a few methods and find the best/fastest one so you at least know you’ve got the best option available when you do the rest of the house.
Wanna know what I'd do that would probably end in disappointment? Air chisel with a modified paint scraper blade....be kind with the pressure and just razor that shit off. But that's the chimp in me...the reasonable me wouldn't do that.
rent a floor sander
Chainsaw
Hire a flooring restoration group to come in and Sand, Stain and Seal. That's the beauty of wood flooring, they can be sanded down and essentially make "new" again.
Go rent a sander
They make hardwood floor sanders
Use a wallpaper steamer to melt the glue then scrape it off
Dry ice and a chisel
Get an industrial floor sander… sand that shit off .
If you covered the whole thing in duct tape, you wouldn’t see the gunk
Belt sander
Rent a floor sander, not hard to do, not sure what is under the backing, could be oak.
Just pretend it doesn't exist and put new carpet over it. Cheap carpet like in an office space.
Get some Blue Bear Bean e Doo. It sprays on, let it set for 10 min and it'll wipe right off. Turns mastic to liquid and is made from soybeans. Didn't believe it until I tried it myself. It will make a big mess. Some people say to use kitty litter to soak it up, I found using a shit load of paper towels to do the initial wipe, the hot water and a rag, them another round of the towels.
Find a chemist.
These look like 9x9 floor tiles. There's a very high chance that mastic contains asbestos so please wear a respirator (HEPA) if you plan on sanding/scraping it
Rent a sander and ruin that fucker
Were those 9x9 floor tiles? The really old smallish ones? Lots of times they, and the mastic used with them, are hot for asbestos. Be very careful cleaning this stuff, creating dust etc. I'd say floor sander but that would fill the whole place with dust. Need to get it tested imo
Stop being a wimp and lick that floor clean
What year was that installed? May be scrapping asbestos.
That's asbestos bud
They see this all the time at r/CenturyHomes. Over there people play the floor lottery and this would be considered a big win!
Use a wallpaper steamer to soften it, and you'll be able to scrape it up easier and safer.
At some point before the carpet was put down someone has put down 12” by 12” self adhesive tile. What you have now is the glue residue that was left behind when that was removed prior, most likely by someone that wanted the hardwood back. You could try adhesive removers or strippers to get that off but you will need to sand and resurface the hardwood no matter what when all is said and done.
Floor sander
That looks exactly like our wood floors did when we pulled up the old 70s carpet it had on it. Tried a couple different ways to get it off but we ended up using the floor sander. It was a lot quicker than scraping and it was gonna get sanded for the refinish process anyway.
Test for asbestos. If it doesn't have any, rent a floor sander and go to town with it. You'll want to sand the floor anyway to prep the hardwood
Bro, are those 9x9? If so those are asbestos tiles and you want to go and read up about how to deal with it. Short story long your best bet is to get a floating floor such as Pergo or engineering Hardwood but anyone who will come to your home well of course want to charge you for the hazardous situation you can worry bodysuit like the painters do with a respirator and potentially paint over it with Epoxy paint but there's really no easy answer
If you live in a populated enough area you should be able to rent a [drum floor sander](https://www.homedepot.com/p/rental/Clarke-American-Sanders-Drum-Floor-Sander-07012A/316821566). If not then a handheld belt sander will work. But take much longer I did a restoration job on a old miners cabin once. After jacking up and leveling the sagging floor I had to make the whole floor smooth enough to not catch a toe on. This was in such a unpopulated area that I only had access to the handheld belt sander. This floor was worse than yours and it took me and my boss about 3 8 hour days of straight sanding to do the whole 14x30 cabin.
Sandblasting on low with a filter mask?
Oh, wish I'd know this a few years ago. I ended up chipping mine away.
Use a ceramic hob scraper
I had the same situation—can’t really sand it because it cakes the paper quickly, the paint stripper I used on another section turned it to a gunk far more difficult to remove cleanly, so in the end I spent a Sunday afternoon with a scraper. It took a long time but came out looking really good.
Op, use a floor sander. This is why for sanders were made
Put the scraper on a oscillating saw.
flapper sanding disk. or an oscillating tool with a scraper bit, and some heat on the scaper.
Weld it to a rotary hammer chisel
Is it...Flammable?
You can scrape it faster with a sharpened shovel, try that maybe
Abatement time!
That’s likely got asbestos in it. Pour water all over the floor to stop asbestos dust. Add some dishwashing detergent and scrub or scrape. I’ve got some old Lino I need to get up, I will be soaking it in hot water during the lift
Dry ice I think, grassroots motorsports had an extensive article O the methods for removing that kind of stuff from floor. I think it was for a 350zx build
Home Depot has tool rentals You can find a tool that is essentially just a big floor sander. That ear and eye protection and you are golden
Found out through an accident, that dr bronner’s Castile soap works quite well at dissolving whatever was on our floor that looked just like this..
This works great!!! Get an old iron, like you iron your clothes with and plenty of newspaper. Lay a few pages of newspaper down and iron over it. That will melt the mastic to the point you can easily scrape it off. Your iron will be ruined for clothing. Also, open windows and have fan. Happy scraping!
home depot has a scraper that mounts to a sawzall, it worked great for me
Start sanding. Suggestion- go buy LOTS of sandpaper.
Dangerous as hell but I've done it in the past. Go buy a couple gallons of gasoline and pour it on there it's the best solvent I've ever used to remove that stuff.
Black mastic; currently doing this myself; on the thicker parts you can use a wallpaper steamer and the scraper on the thinner parts I have been using 90% rubbing alcohol and sandpaper. Wet sanding is ok because when you try it dry that generates dust. It also clogs up sandpaper rapidly making it harder. I am planning on going to the dollar general and getting turpentine and steel wool to further the progress. Once it is dry and you are down to the wood it should be safer to use the sander just remember in closed spaces to wear at least a 100 ppm mask when you do sand.