Clean Concrete Floor after Removing Carpet: In 8 Ways Effectively

Carpet is a very popular material that wraps your floor with aristocracy and beauty. If you install a carpet on your floor, this will last for a long time. Especially, the carpet looks smooth if it is on a concrete floor. But with the time carpet will be damaged no matter what floor it is occupying. Carpets are mainly affected by wearing and tearing.

Therefore, at some point, you need to remove the old carpet and install a new one. But it’s not easy for the concrete floor because it’s hard to strip the stubborn adhesive and its residue from the floor. Therefore, how to clean concrete floor after removing carpet is a major lesson that people want to learn on a great basis.

The ways and methods of today’s article will be a great help in removing the remaining strong adhesive from the concrete floor with less hassle. So, without further ado, let’s get started with our main ideas.

What are the Best Chemicals to Clean Concrete and Carpet Adhesive?

An adhesive that is cured for a long time, takes a hell of a time to be softened and strip totally. You cannot just pull up carpet and stain concrete floors without taking any notice of your floor.

Some major treatment about how to clean concrete after carpet removal is necessary. And you should also insert some basic names of these chemicals and products to clean concrete and carpet adhesive effectively.

Alkaline Cleaning:

An alkaline cleaner has the strong effect on the concrete floor for its powerful agents. Its sodium and potassium hydroxide additives help to pull out the grease and oily remark on the concrete floor with ease. It not only dissolves fat soot, and protein-based dirt, and waxes but also leaves a nice smooth surface for the next installment of carpet.

However, there are some requirements that you have to follow to clean with alkaline cleaning. You need to do it with warm water for a more grateful result. As it carries ammonia and bleach maintaining the right PH, you will get the clean either in a spray bottle or in a liquid bottle.

Acetone, Goo Gone, and WD-40:

We’ve pulled out all the meaningful and effective concrete floor adhesive removers for you. Acetone as an adhesive remover never betrays your floor. Without taking more than 10 minutes, you can see acetone does its job finely. This chemical carries a special agent for dissolving the cured and several-layered grease from the floor.

On the other hand, Goo Gone and WD-40 both have credits for dissolving mastic carpet adhesive. The advantage of adopting Goo Gone is you can apply it on whatever surface you need. Both soft and hard surfaces can withstand the chemical reaction of the product and dissolves chewing gum and stubborn carpet glue.

Besides, WD-40 has great agents to remove glues from the concrete floor without any hassle. Most people choose this product because of its great availability and outstanding effectiveness in stripping glue and clean the floor. This adhesive remover comes with lots of improvement and at the 40th time, this cleaner is getting huge hype from the cleaners.

Vinegar and Baking Soda:

Vinegar and baking soda are one of the sustainable solutions both for the environment and lives of people and pet. As a natural cleaning solution, white vinegar is a very popular household product. The mixture of vinegar and baking soda provides more of a strong cleaning agent.

Besides, making a mixture of vinegar, baking soda, and warm water offers a fruitful effect on the concrete floor. Where bleaching solution is also workable, but if you are an enthusiast of a safe environment, you would choose vinegar and baking soda at first.

Bleaching Solution:

Bleaching is a very harsh solution and concrete has the capability to stand the harshness of it. Though bleach does not affect the concrete surface while pulling off all the dirt and glue from the surface, it can affect the surroundings badly.
A little amount of bleach can be added to warm water to clean the surface.

But after moping, the surface, create a better disposal system where you can throw the waste that contains bleach. Also, make sure that it remains out of the reach of kids and pets.

How to Clean Concrete Floor After Removing Carpet – In 8 Ways Fast:

It’s important and useful to know how to clean concrete under the carpet. Because the carpet remains glued with the concrete, after removing it, you’ll see the glue here and there on the concrete. You need to get rid of the sticky or cured glue as soon as possible by adopting several materials and products.

Also, you need to make the floor even and smooth without any residue to install another design on your floor. To do all these procedures, follow the next ways properly.

Way 1: Know the Materials:

The first job that you should do is to know the materials the whole procedure requires and then get busy collecting them. The materials we are going to use here will surely be available so you don’t have to trouble much. The materials are given below,

1. A hand-held floor scraper
2. Broom or light vacuum cleaner
3. Hot water
4. Towels or rags
5. A floor scrubber
6. Adhesive remover
7. A cleaner
8. A mop and bucket

Way 2: Scrape off the Adhesive:

After you collect all the materials, you need to get into the job of scraping adhesive at first. The cured adhesive is so stubborn that it will require a strong hand-held floor scraper. This floor scraper comes with an edgy blade that helps in scraping off the dry adhesive to a large extent.

Besides, the long extension of the handle eases your job and prevents you from bending much. Thus, you can save yourself from back pain. Though scraping off hard adhesive requires some hard labor, the handheld floor scraper saves you from a lot of labor.

Way 3: Clean the Dust:

After you scrape the adhesive, it is time to clean the dust of the adhesive. For cleaning, you can simply use a broom and place the dust on a dustpan. This way the glue chunk and dirt will be removed properly.

But if you want less work to be done, then you can use a light vacuum cleaner instead. This will suck all the dust and debris in it and make your concrete ready for applying the cleaning solution.

Way 4: Remove the Remnant:

Well, as we’ve already said that it’s not easy to deal with cured glue only by scraping, it requires more to fully come off. To remove the remaining adhesive you need to boil some water. As boiled or hot water is more of a safe option than other many chemicals, using it would be a better option.

Spread the boiled water in places where you see stubborn glue. You can directly pour the boiled water on it or use a rag or towel instead of the direct throw. If you use a rag or towel, then there is very little risk that the floor will be affected by it. Let the adhesive soak the boiled water and loosen its bonds within 5 or 6 minutes.

Way 5: Time to Scrub:

The moment you notice that boiled water has loosened the molecules of the adhesive, you need to scrub the spot instantly. Do not wait for a long time to do the scrubbing process. It’s because, once the hot water is cooled, it will make the adhesive more strong rather than loosening the bonds.

Therefore, do the scrubbing process as soon as the boiled water loosens the bond of the adhesive. Adopt a floor scrubber for flooring and scrub the spot with all your energy because this is what your concrete floor needs to be free of adhesive fully.

Way 6: Apply an Adhesive Remover:

It’s actually frustrating that sometimes boiled water is not enough to remove the carpet glue out of the concrete floor completely. In cases like that, you need to ask for the help of chemicals that you’ve been saving for the crucial moment. But don’t be hopeless as we saw many cases where the boiled water alone has removed the most stubborn glue.

In case you fail to cover the job with boiled water, adopt acetone, goo gone, or any favorable adhesive remover. These heavy-duty adhesive removers are great for removing mastic glue within minutes. But before applying these hazardous chemicals, wear a safety suit and make sure there is enough ventilation system.

Way 7: Repeat the Process if Need:

This next step is totally optional. If you see that the adhesive remover is not doing its job in the first attempt, then go for the second or third or many more. You need to continue the process several times until the adhesive is totally gone.

Also, make sure the residue of the adhesive gets also affected by the adhesive remover that you are applying over and over on the concrete floor. As concrete provides a hardened surface, the chemicals will not damage the floor.

Read Also: How to Remove Urethane Adhesive from Hardwood Floors: In 5 Effective Ways

Way 8: Mop the Floor with a Cleaner:

After you are successful in pulling off the hard adhesive from the concrete floor, it’s time to clean the floor with an alkaline cleaner for a fruitful effect. Take a bucket of warm water and mix the right amount of alkaline cleaner in it.

Then sweep the floor with a mop thoroughly. Make sure you are doing it right. Wipe off all the dust and debris along with the residue by mopping the floor correctly. Later, mop the concrete floor with clear water as well. Give it some time to dry and see your concrete floor new and ready for the next installation or experiment.

Grinding Glue off Concrete Floor:

Grinding glue off the concrete floor is really a massive decision. Sometimes even the chemical adhesive remover doesn’t help much. In a circumstance like that, you can get rid of your job by using an angle grinder. With this grinder, you can eliminate the adhesive from the concrete floor after removing the carpet.

Though it requires patients and time, it offers the advantage that you’ll require less material to do the job. Let’s check out the ways of grinding glue off a concrete floor.

Step 1: Wear the Necessities:

As grinding a floor produces a lot of dust, you need to be careful. Therefore, before starting your job, wear a mask, a pair of goggles, and knee pads. This will keep your lungs and sinuses away from being affected by the emission of dust and debris.

Step 2: Adopt a Portable Angle Grinder:

Before you start your job, you need to collect an angle grinder. You can find it on Amazon. Buy a 4 and ½ inch portable angle grinder for its convenience on the concrete floor. Also, buy a diamond grinding wheel with the angler.

Step 3: Grind the Top Layer of Concrete:

After you connect the angler grinder with the electric collection, start to grind the top layer of the concrete. It will make the concrete floor get rid of the cured and sticky adhesive. Also, it will help in making the concrete floor smooth.

Step 4: Install a Shop-Vac Attachment:

As the grinding process produces an immense amount of dust, you need to install a shop vac attachment with the tool. It will suck dust and there will be less dust that you might have to clean later after the whole grinding procedure is done.

It’s a very tough process and might take 2 or 3 days to grind the glue off a concrete floor. But the whole procedure is worth the time as it leaves a pretty smooth concrete floor.

FAQs:

Question: Can you use a carpet cleaner on concrete floors?

Answer: Carpet cleaners are made with chemicals that can affect materials like, fabric, upholstery, woof, any tough floors. Therefore, if you want to use a carpet cleaner to clean a concrete floor, you can go with it.

But don’t think of applying a concrete floor cleaner on the carpet because it will destroy the fabric of the carpet. Besides, the harshness of the floor cleaner is not repairable.

Question: Can you stain concrete after removing the carpet?

Answer: As long as the floor is not affected by the glue of the carpet, you can satin concrete the way you like. But if your carpet is glued for a long time then after removing it, you will not get back to the floor as before.

Then you need to clean the whole mess of glue and dust and then you can stain the concrete. Otherwise, all your work will go in vain and you’ll not get a satisfying result.

Question: How do you clean unsealed concrete floors?

Answer: To clean unsealed concrete floors, you can simply adopt a remedy of white vinegar and warm water. White vinegar is effective for almost all kinds of floors and if they have residue and deep-rooted dust.

And if the situation of the concrete floor is not so bad, then go with a quality floor cleaner that has an effective agent. Then, mop the floor thoroughly with the cleanser and wipe out the dust from it.

Final Words:

The floor adhesive remover and a floor scraper play a big role to remove adhesive from the carpet. Acetone, Goo Gone, and WD-40 work well. Vinegar, Baking Soda, and hot water also work but less. So to properly Clean Concrete Floor After Removing Carpet, you have to follow all those methods discussed in this article, hope it will be helpful. Thank you.

Last Updated on September 17, 2021 by Rogers Weber

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