Best Way To Remove Carpet?

TRBenj wrote: A combination of acetone and a wire brush does a decent job, but it's not a fun one. The adhesive remover may do a little better than acetone? The shortcoming of the acetone is that it evaporates pretty quick and is not a lot of fun to breathe.

Toluene or Zylene are both strong solvents and do not evaporate as fast as acetone. It would probably be a good idea to use beryllium copper tools for this job!

SNobsessed: No idea if that adhesive remover would work or not. I guess you could always give it a try. I would tend to think it would work fine.

I plan on pulling up the carpet from the rear of the boat and use a sharp putty knife to score the edge still attached to the floor as a buddy helps pull it up.

I'd like to keep it as whole as possible so it makes a good template for my upholstery lady to use.

Not looking forward to cleaning up the floor or to see what condition it's in. There's a few spots that feel soft at times, but not sure what's doing under the carpet.

Does the carpet simply stop where the engine cradle sits or does it go under it a little. My guess is that it simply stops on the edge. Am I right?

Are you guys talking about soaking the carpet in something prior to removal in order to make it come up easier or more cleanly? That sounds like a recipe for a big mess.

I've always had decent luck removing the bulk of the carpet (certainly anything put on at the factory) by simply pulling it up by hand. Some small, more stubborn patches usually hang on, but the carpet is usually intact enough to use as a rough template for the new stuff.

Removing the remnants of the backing and old glue is another story and is a serious PITA, at least if you're trying to do a clean prep job for the new carpet going down. I have a 3' blade scraper that does a decent job removing most of the old carpet backing remnants. The adhesive left after that is a slow, ugly process to remove... A combination of acetone and a wire brush does a decent job, but it's not a fun one. The adhesive remover may do a little better than acetone? The shortcoming of the acetone is that it evaporates pretty quick and is not a lot of fun to breathe.

The fact that the glass floor is pretty uneven (you may be surprise if you haven't seen a bare factory floor before) is one of the things that makes this job rather difficult.

Tearing the carpet out of the Martinique was a tuff task for sure, it was not original and was way over glued. Ended up using a vice grip to get a better hold to tear it out, on some sections it took two of us pulling on it together to keep it peeling, was a biatch of a job, good luck, lol.

You used a power washer to remove the carpet?

I am replacing the carpet in our boat next month and need to know if there's an easy way to remove the old one without tearing it to shreds?

I've learned gasoline works really well on softening the carpet glue to where the carpet pulls right up, but I'd like to avoid using gas if at all possible.

There's a soft spot I need to inspect before the new carpet goes in as well.