Remove Carpet & Padding On Steps - Page Three

Removing The Carpet and Pad

Hopefully your steps will not be stapled to death (carpet padding) by the original carpet installer. In most cases the carpet will have been installed by the stretch in Removing carpet from steps method. To remove, grab a pair of pliers and snag the corner at the bottom, pulling it up at the same time. This should free the stretch on the bottom area, allowing you to remove one section at a time. Carpet installers use several pieces on step installations so you won't have to deal with one huge piece of carpet.

The carpet pad will be cut into pieces and stapled to the steps and overlap the nosing. They will be easy to pull with your hands providing not many staples were used. Did we mention the use of gloves while doing this kind of work? Those carpet tack pins are extremely sharp.

Tack Strip Removal Removing tack strip from steps

Tack strip removal can be done with the use of a pry bar (often called wonder bar) and hammer. Did you ever wonder what was underneath all that carpet? Over the years I've found some real goodies, including carpet blades, cigarette butts (lazy installers), and lumps of drywall splatter to name a few.

In this case the removal was quite simple. Reasons being the installers used tack strip designed for attaching to concrete. Our guess is they were too lazy to use the proper tack strip for wood subfloors, which happen to hold much better.

Clean The Mess

Once again depending on who the drywall dudes were, you may find lumps all over the steps. All of it has to be removed before the actual installation. Any void under the hardwood will create squeaking effects eventually. Considering we will also be gluing the plank to these steps, paint overspray has to be removed to allow a good bond with glue and wood.

Renting a flooring edger will work the quickest, but it will not get into corners that will have to be scraped by hand. Maybe that belt sander in the garage will work?

Go To: Remove Stair Bull Nose - Staples On Steps
Back To: Installing Hardwood On Stairs. Introduction

Other Pages In This Series:

• Measure For Hardwood Stairs
• Remove Carpet & Pad On Steps
• Remove Stair Bull Nose - Staples On Steps
• Mortised Hardwood Stairs - Fix Squeaks
• Installing Stair Risers
• Rip Cutting Risers With Table Saw
• Gluing Hardwood Steps