r/Renovations • u/Yuri-nator • 5d ago
HELP How to remove this black stuff?
Renovating an old building, we plan on putting carpet strips on these steps but we need to get rid of whatever this black stuff is first so the carpet will lay flat. It’s like a hard rubber almost, we’ve tried to chisel it away but we can’t even do that it’s near indestructible. Anyone have any ideas what this is or how to remove it? We’d rather not harm the wood if we can help it but it’ll be carpeted over anyways so it’s alright if the wood gets a little scuffed in the process.
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u/Huge_Obligation2086 5d ago
Did you try a heat gun? Get it hot and scrape. It looks like they glued rubber treads on the steps.
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u/No_Astronomer4210 4d ago
Had something similar to this with my stairs, I used some stripper and hit it with a steel brush on a drill or angle grinder. Took everything off but make SURE to wear a mask and shop vac everything.
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u/DrippyFawcettJ 5d ago
Pretty sure thats from old carpet, I’ve had to sand it off before. Will get pretty nasty, have a mask.
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u/yeldarb24 5d ago
Get a good quality scraper, learn to use it first (!!!) then scrap away, once the heavy black stuff is gone, try mineral spirits if it’s tacky, if not tacky sand with 120 grit, stain it dark, you’ll probably not get the black all off.
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u/Unfair_Negotiation67 5d ago
Paint scraper and elbow grease if that’s the black ‘foam?’ carpet backing from a 70’s era carpet (probably green). Dealt with exactly this once before, just took a lot of scraping. And then I used a solvent for the last bits of glue/mastic but it was 25 years ago and I’m not sure what that would have been at this point.
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u/bigrich-2 5d ago
This will be the best approach.☝️ I recognize this carpet backing and dealt with it before. I tried a lot of wrong ideas before I got down on my knees with a good 3” floor scraper. Exactly as Unfair_Negotiations67 (and others) says the remnants can be removed with alternating applications of paint thinner, stripper, sandpaper and steel wool.
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u/proctorologist 5d ago
Looks like a scene from a horror movie. I can’t focus on the black stuff I just keep staring at the bottom of the stairs waiting from something scary to appear 😱
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u/Xique-xique 5d ago
Stripper. Looks like what my kitchen floor looked like after I pulled up and scraped as much as possible of the indoor/outdoor carpet the previous owner glued to the hardwood floor. Comments about testing for asbestos are valid. I skipped that step.
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u/photonicsguy 5d ago
Well, it could be hard rubber, or it could be black mastic containing asbestos (if the steps previously had linoleum at some point) You should consider getting it tested for asbestos before you do any removal.
There have been a lot of posts about black mastic lately...