How to know if hardwood is under carpet before pulling it up
Pulling up carpet without knowing the condition of the floor risks uncovering damaged wood or subflooring that requires extra work to repair or level. This uncertainty stops people from starting the removal process because they worry the hidden flooring will not be worth the effort.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1keeping existing carpet
- 2living on osb subfloor
- 3living on painted plywood subfloor
- 4Renting an electric floor scraper to remove the old linoleum
- 5Laying LVP directly over the old linoleum if it appears level
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Does the wood underneath look like it’s in good enough condition for that?”source ↗
“Does that carpet gripper do damage to the hardwood that would make it not worth my time?”source ↗
“I was just worried about starting the process and finding the wood is actually sub flooring or not in good enough condition.”source ↗
“Going to lay flooring down, but don’t want to do all the work of taking up old linoleum flooring.”source ↗
“You will regret not taking it up.”source ↗
“Would it mess up the LVP in the long run? Or what are the regrets”source ↗
“How can I level it? Do I forcibly have to take it up?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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