Carpet removal before refinishing floors

We want to pull up our wall to wall carpet and have our oak floors refinished. The problem: we are stymied about where to begin and how to do it. There is so much furniture and stuff to move and nowhere to put it since the carpet covers the living room, dining room and maplewood room.

Do WE need to remove it before we call for estimates on refinishing? Or, will the refinishing guys do it at a reasonable cost? Help!

The only way to know will be to get some estimates. The refinishing companies will probably be willing to pull up the carpet as part of the job, but they'll certainly charge extra for the service. They may have suggestions as to what to do with the furniture while the refinishing takes place.

You might consider something like a POD to store your furniture in the short-term. The PODs rentals are a couple of hundred bucks a month depending on the size you need. If you go to the website and order one, pay attention to the requirements for where they put it. Overhanging trees and power lines can mess things up.

Since you'd only need it for a few days, you could also consider renting a largish U-Haul truck which you could park in your driveway. This gets around the POD requirements.

They (PODS and U-Haul) also will have a list of local companies which offer moving services to load and unload the POD or truck.

Yep, we would plan on a POD or similar, but hubster wants to DIY the carpet removal and I'm leaning toward letting someone else do it--whether before or part of the refinishing. I just need someone who has gone through this to give me ammunition.

I have pulled up carpet in one small room. It can be back-breaking work.

There may be nasty old carpet padding under there. Sometimes it deteriorates into a crumbling mass of mouldering foam which gets everywhere, especially if there's a chance there was ever a major spill or pet mess on that carpet!

Plus you also need to get rid of all the stuff. Again, in one small room, I filled up several contractor bags with carpet which I had to cut up, as well as the padding below. I was able to put out a couple every garbage day and it still took two weeks to get rid of the stuff.

and the nailer strips are horrible !! agree back breaking work to get all of the nails and staples out - if hubby wants to try make sure you have a back up plan !!!

When you remove carpet, it's much easier if you cut it into strips about 3' wide. That way they are easier for one person to manage, and then you only have to shift the furniture around a little bit, rather than empty the whole room.

grahamb said:
When you remove carpet, it's much easier if you cut it into strips about 3' wide. That way they are easier for one person to manage, and then you only have to shift the furniture around a little bit, rather than empty the whole room.

That's what I did. I was then able to roll them up and stuff them into the contractor bags.

Utility knife for the carpet and a prybar for the tack strips and removing carpet is a piece of cake. The problem is with the staples that are used for padding. If you don't remove these then the refinishers will charge you almost as much as if the carpet was still down. But you will be able to get a more accurate estimate if they can see the floor.

If he does pull it up, have him wear a mask. There is some nasty dust under most old carpets.

Why do you assume HE will be doing all the pull it up work? I'm in this job too.

jeffhandy said:
If he does pull it up, have him wear a mask. There is some nasty dust under most old carpets.

If they pull the carpet up and I pull the staples, do you think they would agree to that?

Would the finishing firms give me an estimate to remove the carpeting and then a second one after the carpet is up and they can see what needs to be done? I know that there is one area where a radiator leaked that may need special treatment.

krnl said:
Why do you assume HE will be doing all the pull it up work? I'm in this job too. ">

jeffhandy said:
If he does pull it up, have him wear a mask. There is some nasty dust under most old carpets.

If they pull the carpet up and I pull the staples, do you think they would agree to that?

Then he shouldn't decide that it is DIY if you are not comfortable participating.

krnl said:
Why do you assume HE will be doing all the pull it up work? I'm in this job too. ">

jeffhandy said:
If he does pull it up, have him wear a mask. There is some nasty dust under most old carpets.

If they pull the carpet up and I pull the staples, do you think they would agree to that?

Only because you said that HE wants to DIY it. If you had said that he wants us to DIY it then my response would have been different.

If you pull the staples it is less work to be done so I would think that it would cost you less.

I have no problem thinking about doing a single room, but to do the whole floor seems like a challenge. We would consider hiring someone to help us with the carpet, but I'd like to have a sense if the finishing company does it for a reasonable charge. I'm also concerned that it might cost us more if we hired someone separately to help us do the job.

Go for it! This is one of the quicker and most satisfying house projects to do (if you hate carpet.)

If you do rip it out yourselves, like others said, a utility knife (or several) and a crowbar are the basic tools. I found a cat's paw, various shaped pliers and a sacrificial little flathead screwdriver to be the best tools for attacking the tacks. Probably also nail sets and a hammer, and anything else lying around that looks useful. I also found that slicing the carpet into smallish strips helped make it easier to move by myself, rather than big rolls. Time estimate is maybe an afternoon per room, with one novice person working. Small rooms seem to have more tacks per square foot than large rooms, so don't expect them to go more quickly.

We moved most of our furniture to two rooms we weren't touching for the duration, but we don't have much furniture. (You can do it in phases, too; it's not like the carpet comes up in one big piece. It would be inefficient, but you could move the furniture to one half of the room, rip all the carpet on that side, then switch. I did that in one room.)

If the carpet is wrapping the stairs, that is more tedious. So is getting every single last tack, and every last shred of baked-on orange carpet under the beige... And remember not to wander barefoot until all the sharp bits are removed. And definitely yes on the mask when removing the carpet in the bathroom... (Hopefully you won't have that to deal with!)

The hardest part really was disposing of the stuff at the end. It sat in our backyard and garage for quite a while, until my husband finally agreed to swallow the cost of yet another bagster pickup. Don't know what floor refinishers would charge for this, or if they'd charge more or less for disposal, but worth asking before diving in.