hi, everyone! it’s jeff patterson with homerepair tutor, and today i’m going to share with you how to remove old, worn out carpetfrom your house. so i’ve got some great tips for you. before you know it, you’regoing to have a brand new looking room, and you’re going to feel a lot happier aboutthe way that your house looks. so let’s get started! i’ve got great tips. stay tuned.all right. what i like to do is start in a corner, obviously. if you can’t pull upthe carpet by hand – like right here, i can’t pull this up by hand – what youcan do is cut with both hands a little notch in the corner, okay? so i can pull up thecarpet that way. all right. so the notch allows you to grab it with your hand. so now youcan simply pull back using both hands.
the carpet’s going to be attached to thesetackstrips, and that’s no problem. the carpet will just come right off the tackstrips whenyou pull. pull the carpet back from the wall and into the center of the room.for this size room, i like to fold the carpet into thirds. so i fold over one side, theni’ll fold over the other side. but before i do that, when i fold it into thirds, i cantake my utility knife with both hands and just cut along the fold. and what this willallow me to do is to roll up the carpet into manageable pieces, okay? because not all ofus are superman, all right? i know i’m certainly not. and i don’t want to kill my back takingthis down to the street. so roll it up into thirds. and then what youcan do is take a piece of duct tape – i
didn’t mean to do that but – you takea piece of duct tape and tape up the roll. all right. take this. set it aside. fold overthe other portion of the carpet into the center. cut that fold and repeat the process; do thesame thing. okay. so what you’re left with is the paddingon the floor. so padding is just tacked down, most likely with staples. and the staplesare only along the perimeter of the padding. so the cool part about that is all you needto do – with your fingers – is pull back and remove the padding. and just be careful.you may want to wear gloves because the staples – if they come up into the padding – canjab your fingers. although i’m not wearing gloves because i forgot them. so anyhow, thenext step in removing old carpet is remove
the pad.now the carpet padding is pretty flimsy. you can roll it up easier than the carpet itself.so what i like to do is fold it up over on itself – like so – and then use duct tape.after removing the carpet padding, next thing that you absolutely need to do – especiallyif you’re going to install hardwood floors over your wood subfloor here – remove themetal staples. otherwise, your hardwood floor isn’t going to sit flush on this wood subfloor.now if you’re going to put in maybe laminate with a padding on it or carpet, it’s notthat big of a deal. but you definitely want to remove as many staples as possible, okay?so what i like to do is one of two things. you can use your favorite pliers or snipsto remove all the staples, like so. or you
can use a pry bar, like this, and just removeall the staples in an orderly fashion. now if the pry bar has proven to be slow, youcan go back to your snips. all right. so here’s a big tip. check yoursubfloor for squeaks like mine. check this out. all right? so this is squeaky here. ifyou’re going to install hardwood floors, carpet, laminate, whatever, you totally wantto make sure that this squeak is eliminated. and you can do that by finding the joist,and that’s indicated by the screws that go through this wood subfloor. so what youwant to do is line up a ring shank nail, tap it in place, secure this wood subfloor moreto the joist that’s underneath it, okay? and do the same thing with every screw thatyou see. just secure either a ring shank nail
or a 2†deck screw so that you eliminatethat squeak. all gone, right? all gone. so if you’re going to install hardwood floors,laminate, anything other than carpet, you need to remove these tackstrips. but if you’regoing to have carpet down, just leave them in place. the one caveat to that is you needto inspect them. if they’re rusted out, like these ones are, that’s an indicatorthat maybe you had a roof leak if this is on the second floor or simply somebody spilleda drink or water and that that’s what caused the rust. in any case, remove all rusted outtackstrips and replace them with new ones. and all you need to do is take a pry bar likethis one, shove it underneath there, and pry up their nails that hold it in place, okay?you want to find those nails. if the pry bar
isn’t going in, help it out, okay? helpit out. but in any case, you want to find those nails that are holding it down, slidethe pry bar underneath it, and go to town. all right. that’s how you remove carpetfrom your house. not too bad. it is a tough job, i’ll be honest with you. the worstpart is removing the staples. but i got two tips that’ll help you out with that part.number one: if you don’t have knee pads, use a towel. put a towel on the subfloor;save your knees. second tip is use gloves. don’t be a dummy like me and get blisters.i forgot my gloves for today – big mistake. so use gloves when you’re removing the staplesor the tackstrips. so that’s it for today. totally check outmy website at homerepairtutor.com and sign
up for the email newsletter because you’llget tips every single week that’ll help you save money and time.so have a great day, and i’ll see you soon!