Removing glued underlay

[Nico9891]

Hi all, currently renovating a victorian house that needs a lot of work. Underneath the carpet, there was underlay and beneath that another form of acoustic underlay- possibly Regupol?- cork/rubber material, that has been glued to the original timber floorboards. Any advice on how to remove it, short of picking it up inch by inch with our fingers?! We have tried metal and plastic scrapers, white spirits, heat guns etc and it’s not budging. Keen to avoid any major damage to the original wood beneath. Any advice greatly appreciated!

[markc]

Hire a vibrating tile lifter from HSS etc. Does a brilliant job

[Nico9891]

Thanks for reply. One like the one in the photo I’ve attached? Would it do much damage to the wood beneath cos we are planning on keeping them exposed, I.e. not covering back over with carpet.

[Rob99]

We used one of these from HSS to remove vinyl floor tiles from screed. It's better than the hand held breaker as it has a sideways oscillating blade which is much more controllable. It didn't damage the screed at all but I don't know how it would do with wooden flooring. Certainly up to the job. Tried a manual blade on a long handle first and managed about 1m2 in an hour. This machine did a 12m2 room in about the same time.......!!!

 

 

[Nico9891]

Thanks for that. Yes, after around an hour’s work with the long handled stripper I only managed around 0.5m2 and it’s very tough on the hands! Will try to get one of those from HSS this weekend

[Nico9891]

Just an update- we rented that and it’s working great! Thanks for your advice.