How to remove old linoleum
I am extremely sore today and was damn near exhausted last night as the last of the linoleum and it’s residual felt/polonium/asbestos/goat-blood glue has finally yielded to the mighty spring steel scraper included in my $15 Harbor Freight always-keep-your-receipt heat gun kit. Yes, the linoleum is long gone and it was mostly all removed manually, with a springy scraper and short pry bar. Forget everything you’ve heard about heat guns and chemicals and dry ice to speed the process. Stop thinking this is going to be easy. Quit doing research on shortcuts. Get down on your hands and knees, and start scraping that shit off the floor.
The remnant glue, however, can be taken off fairly easily. Mix up some hot water and vinegar, then just pour it on like fake blood. Give it a while. Pour on some more, let it soak a while longer. Keep it moist. It’ll come up like butter, only less tasty and possibly toxic. I expect it will take us no more than one very soggy and dirty hour to get the glue scraped up.
Then we can paint. We have the paint and all accessories at the ready, procured from our local independent paint store. Fuck you, Home Despot. Screw you.
Removing old linoleum is very hard work. Your back shoulders arms wrists &c. will be sore for days. There is no way around this unless you can pay somebody to be sore for you. Accept this as your fate, put on the kneepads, and start scraping that shit up. The sooner you get started, the sooner you can be completely exhausted, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer, slumped against the fresh drywall. But you will be a sweaty smoking slumped drinker that is done with linoleum.
Laughed my ass off when I read this. I can totally relate!! I’ve beenn scraping at my floor for a few days!
Comment by G K — 2008 Jul 11 @ 22:11:38 -0600
This is a good entry because I am looking for shortcuts, but know deep down inside that there is no short cut — 2 years ago I was able to remove most of the old flooring in our family room, and have been avoiding going back to it, because it is so much work. Yesterday I almost rented a pressure washer, thinking that might work, but will now go back to the hot water/scraping method.
Comment by Ofelia — 2008 Sep 00 @ 08:00:19 -0600
OMG! This is all so true. My daughter tried everything to remove 50+ year old linoleum. The only thing was soaked hot water towels and a tough scraper. I helped her out one day – it was hell. The only thing we found out was to make sure the water is really HOT. Knee pads would be really good too. Good luck to anyone that is going to tackle a job like this. By the way, my daughter now has new Pergo flooring – not stuck to the floor in any way. ; )
Comment by Chris — 2009 Mar 38 @ 16:38:50 -0600
You know, we bought a place that was built between the World Wars, and it came with ancient linoleum. I am embarrassed to say that it is still there, and more embarrassed to say that it is *very* dirty. About the third time I tried to mop the kitchen, I added ammonia to the soapy water, and was horrified to discover that the water turned white. The linoleum (probably 40’s or 50’s at the latest, was being broken down by the ammonia. Our latest puppy dug up a big patch of it in the hall last month, so I am thinking of revisiting the ammonia mix as a way of loosening the stuff. Right in the middle of the *ahem* dog patch, there is a quarter-sized window to what looks like oak boards. Tempting, but our roommate has bad asthma, and we would have to either do it while she was away or have the shopvac on all the time.
Comment by Margaret Weller — 2011 Sep 37 @ 02:37:36 -0600