Removing existing glue prior to installing new glue down carpet

[san diego jim]

I will be installing new gluedown (gd) carpet next week and the existing carpet that we are pulling up is glass back that is glued down with a very sticky green adhesive that is still sticky. In order for me to get a warranty from the glue manufacture (Henry's) they say I have to remove the existing glue. I intend to remove it (with a sinclair scraper) but what happens if you don't? This job is 2000 yds

[Professional flooring I]

I dont know what kind of scraper you are going to use but what i have done in the past is spread out some cheap patch over the existing glue prior to removing it , it will help in keeping the glue from sticking back down to the floor as well as the tools used for removing the glue

[san diego jim]

The patch is a great idea! Thanks.
The scrapers I am using are called the Sinclair "Duro". They vibrate in an elliptical motion and can hold a regular 8" scraper blade. They work great on still sticky glue. Better than a scrape away blade on a floor machine,,,

[Floorguy]

Forget buying expensive patch! Get you some dirt or sand somewhere. It can even have leaves and debris in it.

[rgfloor]

If it is a glass-back carpet you are taking up it is probably a Pressure Sensitive adhesive that is down. Get a few bags of sand and spread that around on the sticky residue, then scrape with the sinclair. If there is a lot of adhesive that does not come up you may need to consider something like Lee's Everseal or Shaw has 9050 Primer.

What is going down? What adhesive? Henry's ???

A last resort would be a skimcoat of Ardex FeatherFinish (also made by Henry).

[Demonseed]

Since your question was "What happens if you don't remove it?" I will give you the short answer.

For the most part laying out the carpet and putting it in place will be a major problem, then you will have to deal with the fact you pretty much will not be able to sweep the floor or remove any debris, you will end up using twice as much new adhesive as needed, and if somehow it all was to work in your favor you will write a note in your planner, if they ever call you back to replace the job, to say you no longer do carpet.

Depending on what the carpet is over, if you have a decent stripping machine with good blades you can usually get most of the adhesive up when you are doing the rip, we have the warehouse guy use a grinder on the old blades to keep a good edge on them, to get a longer life. But there are a thousand different scenarios, so if one doesn't work for you. You will figure something out real quick.

A case of scrap VCT today would have saved me a good 90 minutes of prep work.

[Demonseed]

I guess you missed the huge argument of last year about feather finishing over existing adhesive, why I did not mention it in this thread. We do the feather finish in many scenarios but we do a lot of C+A carpet tile (peel and stick) and it is spec'd to skim coat and prime. We also do skim coats in other situations, beware of the plastercize migrations......

In commercial work, if you can do everything by the book you are in a Union, or losing money.

rgfloor said If it is a glass-back carpet you are taking up it is probably a Pressure Sensitive adhesive that is down. Get a few bags of sand and spread that around on the sticky residue, then scrape with the sinclair. If there is a lot of adhesive that does not come up you may need to consider something like Lee's Everseal or Shaw has 9050 Primer. What is going down? What adhesive? Henry's ??? A last resort would be a skimcoat of Ardex FeatherFinish (also made by Henry).

[mcbrides]

We did an office re&re in a bank quite a few years ago, ripped up action bac glued down with multi. The original mp adhesive was still tacky, and made it difficult to position the carpet, but we managed and used multi again to glue it down. We heard afterward that there had been a chemical reaction between the adhesives and the total job had to be ripped out and the adhesives had to be removed down to the bare concrete. Haven't heard of that happening, before or since.
D&D

[Demonseed]

D&D, when I was a young guy, I was doing prep work on a job, I was mixing the patch and no matter what I did it was setting up almost instantly, took me a few years to figure out what happenned. I needed water, the customer said no problem, it was a hot summer day, I was just thinking about the job, mixing the patch in a bucket with a drill.

The guy was bringing me hot water.

[Chris Mha]

Buy a bag of portland cement.