What are these strips around the edges of my floor?
Ripping up old carpet or laminate often reveals unexplained materials along the drywall, such as heavy caulk, foam strips, or translucent sheets over the OSB. Because these items sometimes tuck directly under the walls, people cannot tell if they are a standard, necessary part of the room. This stops the flooring removal process as they are left wondering what exactly they are looking at.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
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What are these strips around the edges of my floor?
- 1Posting pictures to online communities to ask for identification2 people mentionedDid this help you?
- 2Ripping the object out to see if it causes any issuesDid this help you?
- 3Ignoring the old method and following the new manufacturer's recommendationsDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I'm ripping up old laminate flooring in the kitchen, and I'm finding that whoever did the previous flooring added a whole bunch of caulk around the edges, i.e., all along the drywall.”source ↗
“I get that this is a kitchen, but is this standard/necessary?”source ↗
“Update: There seems to be some sort of foam strip around the edges, and this light blue translucent sheet on top of OSB. What am I looking at?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 6How to tell if floor marks are a manufacturing defect or installer error
- 10Where to start laying flooring in a room with irregular walls
- 2Why am I so nervous about installing DIY flooring?
- 16What is the fluffy stuff in my attic and is it safe?
- 14How to tell if uneven flooring panels are defective
- 2Is this flooring engineered hardwood, laminate, or LVP?