Linoleum Glue Mess
I’ve searched the internet and am not convinced by the advice I found for removing the glue left by 2 layers of linoleum. One layer of glue is hard and has the black tar like paper residue, the other linoleum glue layer is soft like bubblegum and is the bigger nightmare. How the heck am…
I’ve searched the internet and am not convinced by the advice I found for removing the glue left by 2 layers of linoleum. One layer of glue is hard and has the black tar like paper residue, the other linoleum glue layer is soft like bubblegum and is the bigger nightmare. How the heck am I going to get this off a whole flight of wood stairs? Thanks for any advice.
P.S. He normally fills cracks with wood filler unless you tell him not to. It won’t hurt the floors, but it cracks so is not that useful.
I thought the linoleum itself might contain asbestos, but not the glue. That is scary. We had linoleum covering all our floors, and we sanded the floors. The floor guys didn’t give it a thought. Same with many houses, I would imagine.
So if you have the black glue tested, and it comes back positive for asbestos, do you hire asbestos removers to come in and take away the black glue with boiling water? I’ve never heard of anyone doing that. It must cost thousands.
Our floor guy is Jose Costillo at 347-926-1185. I think he is used to working on big jobs where they tell him exactly what they want, so it’s a good idea to know something about floors and know what you want. He kind of a wood nerd, very conscientious, does beautiful work. I don’t think he normally sands by hand, but that was the only option on the stairs.
Sebb: So I guess you are saying children should never be allowed in renovated old houses? But new construction is ok?
I hope you never let little children in that home , because those Asbestos fibers will be floating around forever. Just saying.
I’m with the asbestos crowd on this one.
Depending on the adhesive there are several approaches, most of which have been listed already. Another one is dry ice. Lay a sack of dry ice on a lump of mastic for a couple of minutes and whack it with a hammer. The cold causes the mastic to contract and harden, which loosens its grip.
I would test with a sander first. I tried to sand off old linoleum adhesive once and the friction of the sandpaper melted the glue, gummed up the paper and drove the black mastic deeper into the wood fibers.
As others have said I also recommend sanding, you’ll use more paper but results will be good.
Adhesive remover from Home Depot worked great for me. Just get a cheap brush from 99 cent store and brush it on. Then scrape the stuff off.
mopar, do you mind posting the name and phone # of your floor person? My stairs could use some hand sanding… thanks