Removing Vinyl Flooring

[Jerry Bruette]

Anyone know of a good way to remove glued down vinyl flooring?

I've done it in the two bathrooms we remodeled and I cut the vinyl and the underlayment into squares, about 2x2, and pried them up with wonder bars. Is there a better way? Don't want to hire it out, the flooring company wants $900 to do the tear out.

[Tom M King]

You can rent a tool especially made for that. It's heavy, on wheels, and has a vibrating blade that rolls it right up. I can't remember what it's called though.

[Paul F Franklin]

You can rent a tool especially made for that. It's heavy, on wheels, and has a vibrating blade that rolls it right up. I can't remember what it's called though.

Around here they are called tile strippers at the rental centers. If it's glued to wood, you want a wide blade for the stripper as it is less likely to gouge the wood. If over concrete, a narrower blade will usually work better.

If it's a small room, a flooring scraper will let you do the job with less kneeling or stooping.

[Bill Dufour]

Bosch makes a bent shank wide blade chisel in SDS+ to use for getting tile up. It may not be sharp enough for softer stuff.
Bill D

https://www.cabletiesandmore.com/bosch-sds-plus-hammer-steel-chisel

[Tom M King]

This is what I use, but I bought one off CL for a couple of hundred bucks, including a couple of chisels. No bending over required.
https://edcostore.com/product/big-stick-chisel-scalers/?attribute_pa_handle-option=ergonomic&gclid=Cj0KCQiAmpyRBhC-ARIsABs2EAqykN5XBo7cAXnCFuQZrbcK3GdNnLEZkBtX3bHfzs Q7UozE38ixBm0aAtiEEALw_wcB

[Tom M King]

Here is the type of tool I was talking about renting:

https://edcostore.com/product/8%e2%80%b3-manual-tile-shark-floor-stripper/

[Frank Pratt]

I've stripped the vinyl & underlayglued from 3 floors for my kids & all had the underlayment screwed & glued to some extent. What a horrid experience. Good luck.

[Jerry Bruette]

I've stripped the vinyl & underlayglued from 3 floors for my kids & all had the underlayment screwed & glued to some extent. What a horrid experience. Good luck.

The underlayment is stapled down with narrow crown staples about every inch and a half in the field and crazy close together on the seams. And I've got about 430 square feet to do. Not looking forward to it but it's almost like paying myself $900 to do the job.��

[Michael Schuch]

30 years ago a buddy owned an old house with very old thin industrial carpet that was glued down to wood. He asked me for help pulling it up. After 15 minutes I said the heck with that and took him to the rental center. I had no idea that a vibrating blade stripper even existed but it is what the rental guy recommended and it did a heck of a good job and we were able to scrape up the whole carpet in about 4 hours. We left some gouges in the wood here and there but they were easily filled.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

If you just want to remove the vinyl try a heat gun or old iron. If it is old (pre 1980) it or the backing may contain asbestos. I make a 12 x 12 inch sheet metal pyramid with a hole at the point that holds the heat gun, let that heat for 45 seconds and work on one square foot at a time.

[Jerome Stanek]

I have used an ice scraper to remove tile.

[Roger Feeley]

+1 on the Bosch rotary hammer. We had kitchen vinyl glued to Underlayment which was glued and stapled to the floor. Getting all that up was still a job but we’d still be there if we used hand tools. Besides I got a great masonry drill out of the deal.

[Lee DeRaud]

Here is the type of tool I was talking about renting:

https://edcostore.com/product/8%e2%80%b3-manual-tile-shark-floor-stripper/+1. Home Depot rents them.

There's also a lighter-duty version that I used for my kitchen, did about 150sqft is something under two hours. And that with was some truly gnarly glue holding it down.

[Rollie Meyers]

When remodeling my main bathroom a year ago, since it was gutted & getting a cast iron tub, plus swapping locations of the W.C. & lavatory the existing vinyl & underlayment was pulled up, I had nailed it down with screw shank nails maybe 30 years prior, it was a job even when using a 5' bar & 2 people to persuade it, rather wished had been more stingy with the nails, one of these days need to add up the receipts to see how much I spent.

[Jason Roehl]

I am loathe to hire out work. However, I have removed a fair amount of flooring over the years, and $900 to remove 430sf of vinyl flooring and underlayment sounds like a deal, especially if that includes disposal. But maybe I’m just getting lazy in my old age!