How To Remove Tack Strips From A Cement Floor

A very easy way to remove carpet tack strip from the basement concrete floor.

How to remove tack strips from a cement floor.

Roll or fold the strip secure with duct tape and remove it from the room. Carpet tack strips can usually remain in place but look for rust rot or other damage. I did remove tack strips from a terazzo concrete floor before refinishing the floor with an acid wash. If you plan to polish the concrete and use it as the floor surface fill these holes with masonry caulking or leveling compound.

The tack strips used to secure carpeting to a concrete slab are equipped with small hardened nails that penetrate and grip the concrete. If the floor is made of concrete you are left with unsightly holes along the perimeter of the room. Carpet tack strips are wooden boards installed around the perimeter of a floor to hold carpet in place. Since these tack strips are nailed into the floor.

You can take the woode out from around the nails and then. A blended cement patch compound does a good job of covering up carpet tack holes on concrete floor. When you remove the tack strip it tends to leave a small hole where the concrete has been broken from the nails. Using a concrete patching material will fill the hole but will also stain a different color from the rest of the floor causing a new problem to solve.

However preparation of the holes and the surrounding concrete is necessary to ensure a strong patch. Removing tack strips from a concrete floor leaves behind small nail holes along the outside perimeter of the concrete floor. If you are pulling up carpet from stairs. These small nails must be pried out as the tack strip is removed and they typically chip out the concrete gripped by them.

Ways to remove carpet tack strips from concrete or hardwood floor. Taking a carpet tack strip off of a concrete floor will be somewhat different from taking it off of a hardwood floor especially if you plan on keeping and restoring the hardwood floor. Continue pulling up carpet a few feet at a time and cutting it into easy to handle strips. You must not pull out the nails.

Begin at the top of the stairs.