93EXCivic
93EXCivic MegaDork
2/29/20 4:49 p.m.

So I am putting in LVP downstairs and I tore out the carpet and found vinyl on glued to the slab. Do I need to remove the crappy old stuff first? And should i scrap up the glue they used for the carpet?

Patrick
Patrick GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
2/29/20 5:34 p.m.

Don't have to remove vinyl.  do scrape glue and remove any loose vinyl and patch any spots with speedfinish or similar.  

Purple Frog
Purple Frog GRM+ Memberand Reader
2/29/20 6:01 p.m.

What Patrick said.

ChrisLS8
ChrisLS8 New Reader
2/29/20 6:33 p.m.

Nope, I did plank vinyl over linoleum tile in the apartment and it came out great, you can do the nicer stuff over tile even as long as it's mostly flat. 

93EXCivic
93EXCivic MegaDork
2/29/20 7:25 p.m.
Patrick said:

Don't have to remove vinyl.  do scrape glue and remove any loose vinyl and patch any spots with speedfinish or similar.  

Any tips on getting this god awful glue up? Also how complete does it need to be removed? I am putting down a moisture barrier

Grizz
Grizz UberDork
2/29/20 8:23 p.m.

You need to keep that god awful vinyl there as an homage/warning about the 70s

 

tr8todd
tr8todd SuperDork
3/1/20 5:33 a.m.

Last time I pulled up the vinyl on a job we found a 10' diameter circle of reddish brown stain.  Turns out it was a blood stain.   A few questions later and we learned that some teenage boy had killed his mother in that house back in the early 80s.  Never again will I remove linoleum.  Just don't know what its hiding.  FWIW, a year before we renovated the kitchen with the stain, we did the basement over.  It was during that basement remodel that my nephew, the electrician, quit the job because he swore the house was haunted.  Said his tools kept getting moved and someone was calling his name even thou he was the only one on the job.  We all made fun of him and moved on with the job.  Nobody else had issues, but he was the only young guy on the job.  The rest of us are like everybody else in the trades.  We are getting old.

Curtis73
Curtis73 GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
3/2/20 9:55 a.m.

Murder aside, there are few substrates better than a nicely-installed linoleum floor.  On a slab, it's not too big a deal, but on most floors, linoleum takes the most prep.  It has to be perfectly flat or the linoleum will show every seam and screw/nail that was under it.  In fact, most times new linoleum just goes over the old when a pro installs it.

No reason to take it up.  The only reason I took out the linoleum in my old house was because there were 4 layers of it and I wanted to do tile.

Heck, I'm HOPING to find linoleum under my carpet before I lay hardwood.  Seeing good, flat linoleum means you have good, flat floor under it.  It's not always true, but it's like buying a Miata from a person who has every maintenance receipt.  It might explode tomorrow, but it's unlikely.  Warm fuzzy.  Leave it.

RX Reven'
RX Reven' GRM+ Memberand SuperDork
3/3/20 5:29 p.m.

In reply to Curtis73 :

I put linoleum down before installing 600 sq. ft. of engineered, floating hardwood flooring. At the time, H.D. was selling self-adhesive, one-foot squares for 29 cents. I thought what the heck, the linoleum had a tar backing (ghetto moisture barrier) and a shiny facing which made it easy to insure the floor was level and free of imperfections.

I did put down a high-end foam padding / aluminum moisture barrier under the hardwood so the tar was just added insurance.

A few weeks after I bought the linoleum, H.D. increased their price to 39 cents…holy smokes, that’s an instantaneous 34% increase.

OP, I’m not a professional installer but I agree with what others have said, the linoleum is actually helpful. In terms of the glue, OMG, by far the hardest part of the job was getting the old glue that held down an oak plank floor. I attacked the stuff with aggressive chemicals & an angle grinder with painfully slow progress. What turned out to be the best was a purpose designed floor scrapper like this...

 

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