How to remove old dried adhesive before laying LVP flooring
Old dried adhesive must be scraped away completely before laying a vapor barrier and LVP. Scraping old residue by hand is extremely tedious and can take hours per strip, which stops installers from easily prepping the subfloor.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Giving the floor a good scrub and vacuum without removing the adhesive
- 2Adhesive cleaners
- 3Heating with a blow dryer and heat pads
- 4Scraping manually with a putty knife
- 5Using WD-40 and a plastic scraper
- 6installing a floating floor over the old tile
- 7glue down flooring over the top after repair and a thin coat to prep the surface
- 8tearing out all the existing tile down to the subfloor before installing new flooring
- 9Pouring self-leveler over the remaining glue using a specialized primer
- 10Using a rotohammer with a scraper bit
- 11removing flooring by hand using a putty knife and anti-adhesive solution
- 12using a heavy-duty floor scraper machine from a hardware store
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I already removed it by hand in one bathroom using a puddy knife and anti-adhesive solution. Took about half the day.”source ↗
“Covering the old tile with new flooring will not prevent the tile from tenting. You know it is prone to tenting in your house. I would not risk it. Tear out the tile and install new flooring.”source ↗
“I have tried so many things to get this stuff to a point that I can scrape it off.”source ↗
“The stuff is just dried on there. It’s been on the floor a long time, and there are eight strips of this.”source ↗
“It took me over 2 hours to get one strip off and it was a very tedious job with a putty knife.”source ↗
“What, if anything, should I be doing to remove all this stuff before I put the vapor barrier down and start laying the LVP?”source ↗
“I can do this by hand but it may take me all day and I got things to do and life to enjoy.”source ↗
“Will it continue to lift beneath the new floor? What can we do to prepare and mitigate that potential?”source ↗
“The glue or adhesive that was used on the gypcrete subfloor is extremely difficult to get off even with a fairly heavy duty and sharp scraper.”source ↗
“I’ve tried to use a solvent and heat gun but it doesn’t help much.”source ↗
“I’ve gouged the gypcrete a bit trying to get the adhesive off so I’ll probably need to use a floor leveler anyway..”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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