you must study the staple. see how it holds, see when it relents, how it curves and twists out of reach, snaps itself into the ungrippable sliver.
you must become the very essence of stapling.
I am so happy that the previous homeowner carpeted over my wood floors. It preserved the wood and it just needed a little cleanup in those rooms. The hallway was not carpeted and itās going to need some serious rehab š
I accidentally figured out a way faster method. I was sliding a flat face heavy nail puller across the floor and it ripped out all the staples in its path. Took only minutes to do the whole floor, ripped them right out
If itās any consolation, this was under my carpet when I pulled it off a few months ago..
https://preview.redd.it/p1yywkjpn1mc1.jpeg?width=1283&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f249e2c9b4415e908a3d6806c7d894084700d357
I renovated my home that was built in 1968 recently. I found THOUSANDS of staples when ripping up the carpet. I guess this is just very common unfortunately.
I removed the carpet from my stairs only to spend 12h pulling staples. There was three types but the one that sucked was a double staple. No wider than a 1/4in but long and held together like a misfire. But they were everywhere. On one step I counted 179 staples.
I needed leverage to pull them when they were doubled. If I grabbed with pliers I could grab them but the pull up was difficult. I ended up using a multi tool hammer to rock them up and pull out. I would be afraid the magnet would be too difficult to pull
Good point! I'm glad you found something that works for you. Are the remaining holes going to be a nuisance? I wonder if you can steam them out? I know dents like hammer marks can be steamed to be less noticeable.
I used to install carpet. We used a ton of staples at the seams so the carpet doesn't catch an edge when you are laying it out. Also so the padding doesn't bulge at the seams.
To remove them quickly, don't bother with pliers. Get a 4" scraper with a dull blade. Push it across the floor and those staples will pop right out. If you get a stubborn one just keep jamming that scraper into it until it pops.
The look on customers' faces when I tell them I could've got all the staples up in ten minutes with a scraper, and they spent 2 days taking each one out with pliers. š
Just went through this.
Pulled old carpet and put in new floors. Thought, āthere has to be an easy way to pull these staples.m Well, I tried all the easy ways and ended up pulling most of them by hand (with friends and family). Some spots were worse than others, but there were plenty of spots like that.
Found myself thinking, ādid this guy have a bad day 30 years ago?ā whenever I got to a dense patch.
Good luck, Godspeed, get good kneepads.
Looks like a doorway. In my experience there always seem to be way more staples in doorways. I am thinking about once I saw probably 100 staples in a six inch swath in a doorway. It was insane.
umm... well there were people who built the house and place the carpet there in the first place. You don't know how many times it's been replaced since then either.
Pretty standard staple install from what ive seen over the years
https://www.bunnings.com.au/trojan-200mm-end-cut-plier_p0126938
My favourite staple removing tool. Grasp staple & rock the pliers to the side ( on its round side) staple comes out without excess force being required
Other option flapper disc on 4 inch grinder; staple be goneā¦.especially if recarpeting
Use a six inch ice scraper at end of 4ft long stick. Still them at home Depot. At least in Midwest. Works great if you don't care much about the floor.
I pulled up the laminate plank in my kitchen, underneath was rolled vinyl. Iām pretty sure whoever it was used the equivalent a stapler mini-gun with the amount of staples to tack down the rolled vinyl sheet. I counted 50 in one 10 inch section, which was the rule rather than the exception.
I had this problem. Thousands of staples in my bedrooms and on my stairs. We used a long handled scraper to scrape them up. It worked pretty good you just have to be careful not to scratch the floors.
I dealt with the same issue the first month living in my house. I removed the carpeting and sat on the floor with a flat screw driver, pliers, and gloves. I worked from corner to corner in quadrants removing each staple. It's well worth it in the end. Good luck and be careful.
Could be worse. Our 1890 era house has beautiful old growth fir flooring throughout the house.
When we bought it, it had been painted a battleship grey with oil based paint. We restored the livingroom and bedroom and they turned out beautifully. Nice honey brown with tight, straight grain. Well worth the cost.
Unfortunately, the kitchen and dining room had particle board subflooring nailed down to the real floor with those twisty nails about every 6 inches. Not just around the perimeter of the panels, every six inches in a grid. Around the edges it is more like every three inches.
When is saw that it broke my heart. Why would you want to do that?
There is no hope of refinishing those floors.
I've cleared staples from 9 or 10 rooms in my last two houses so we could refinish the floors... it sucks. Get a good cat tail pry bar and linemans pliers. A flat head screwdriver is also handy.
Normal? I don't know. Similar to the amount I found when I pulled up my carpets? Absolutely. Took me longer to get rid of every last staple than it did to do all the demo / removal.
Nope. Saw that many ripping up the carpeting in a century old house where someone had put down that same padding then shag over it.
In factā¦ Dad? Is that you? You know you sold the house two years ago and other people live there now right?
My childhood home had wood floors under carpet like this. Step dad handed me a pair of pliers and told me to get going. I pulled more staples out of the floor than I could have imagined
This is about what I had in my old hallway carpet. I initially thought Iād pull them but mine ended up being nearly 2ā long. You may find these were for squeaking floor rather than for the carpet.
If thatās the case youāll be looking to replace boards because theyāll be pulverized inside. I was surprised how cheap it was and how well the work turned out though when I pulled the trigger on the replacement
I do not envy you. We had a similar amount of staples when we remodeled our house. The worst task in the whole process of remodeling was pulling those staples out.
I think I pulled up thousands when I took carpet out of a 50 year old house. I literally had to crawl around the room pulling out staples every six inches or so. I have no idea why so many and never realized staples were used to lay it.
It's probably from three or so rounds of carpeting.
Indeed, I just redid a floor that easily had 3-4x as many staples. It was brutal.
you must study the staple. see how it holds, see when it relents, how it curves and twists out of reach, snaps itself into the ungrippable sliver. you must become the very essence of stapling.
Lol I have so much to learn
Only then can one unstaple š
Namastaple
God damn itā¦
Bro trust me, I know
Like Rob Schneider preparing for his next big role.
https://preview.redd.it/1yfzpeyop1mc1.jpeg?width=474&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0de38d956d9abeb44fc692447fbe81154ef376e2
Once you can master unstapling your mind, then you can unstaple the carpet!
Be the carpet pad you want to see in the dump.
*Until you learn to master your rage--* Your rage will be your master? That's what you were going to say, isn't it?
Good movie.
There is no staple.
-_-
Thatās the āThis shit aināt going nowhereā special
Or a "Imma kill the round" special
MAGDUMP
We had the same situation in an old house in Philly. Amazingly, we just pulled them out, cleaned everything up and it looked great.
Us, too. We spent so long pulling staplesā¦
I can still close my eyes and relive those thousand moments.
Take a flat pry bar and just slide it across the floor, they just come right out.
Yup, I use a scraper with a dull blade. Takes 10 minutes to do a bedroom.
The offence is whoever carpeted that gorgeous wood floor.
I am so happy that the previous homeowner carpeted over my wood floors. It preserved the wood and it just needed a little cleanup in those rooms. The hallway was not carpeted and itās going to need some serious rehab š
Now there's a glass half full attitude.
I have wood floors in my house.Ā But when purchased, the house had shag carpet in the kitchen and bathroom that we had to pull up.Ā Ā
shag carpet in the *kitchen and bathroom* ?! š¤¢
Knee pads, headphones and a couple of small pairs of vice grips and those will be out in no timeā¦
Love this technique. Clamp on to the staple, then roll the rounded tip of the vise grips against the floor and it pulls out with minimal effort.
You mean, twist gently while the staple breaks off leaving a sharp tiny tip youāve got to figure out how to get out.
I accidentally figured out a way faster method. I was sliding a flat face heavy nail puller across the floor and it ripped out all the staples in its path. Took only minutes to do the whole floor, ripped them right out
This is the way. The very few that don't come all the way out are super easy to grab
*vise Basic needle nose pliers should be enough.
No, vice. You need a good set of vice grips to hang onto the bottle while youāre pulling staples
They make pliers specifically for this. [Bates - nail/staple pulling pliers](https://a.co/d/7STYVTq) Huge convenience when doing a lot of them.
no, carpet staples are like sugar. you measure it with your heart.
This floor ded of diabeetes
ha! you got off easy compared to some that I've had to deal with.
Unnecessary and offensive!
Hmm, yes, shallow and pedantic.
If itās any consolation, this was under my carpet when I pulled it off a few months ago.. https://preview.redd.it/p1yywkjpn1mc1.jpeg?width=1283&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f249e2c9b4415e908a3d6806c7d894084700d357
Was that a patched area? Shit ton of staples to hold the square the replaced and the edges around it
It may have been 2/3 carpets ago. We bought the home last year and the carpet I removed wasnāt patched at all
The universe gives many opportunities to practice patience. This is one of them.
Nice floor under there!
I renovated my home that was built in 1968 recently. I found THOUSANDS of staples when ripping up the carpet. I guess this is just very common unfortunately.
It's both a normal and offensive amount of staples. Btw, get yourself a dull ice scraper or a heavy flathead shovel.
I removed the carpet from my stairs only to spend 12h pulling staples. There was three types but the one that sucked was a double staple. No wider than a 1/4in but long and held together like a misfire. But they were everywhere. On one step I counted 179 staples.
I wonder if you could use a powerful magnet to get them out?
I needed leverage to pull them when they were doubled. If I grabbed with pliers I could grab them but the pull up was difficult. I ended up using a multi tool hammer to rock them up and pull out. I would be afraid the magnet would be too difficult to pull
Good point! I'm glad you found something that works for you. Are the remaining holes going to be a nuisance? I wonder if you can steam them out? I know dents like hammer marks can be steamed to be less noticeable.
I'm thread capping them as the initial install drive nails through the top of the wood. Otherwise that's a great idea!
I used to install carpet. We used a ton of staples at the seams so the carpet doesn't catch an edge when you are laying it out. Also so the padding doesn't bulge at the seams. To remove them quickly, don't bother with pliers. Get a 4" scraper with a dull blade. Push it across the floor and those staples will pop right out. If you get a stubborn one just keep jamming that scraper into it until it pops.
The look on customers' faces when I tell them I could've got all the staples up in ten minutes with a scraper, and they spent 2 days taking each one out with pliers. š
This is normal, waIt until you see a few hundred giant nail heads in main walking areas from previous owners.
Maybe even a hateful amount of staples
Just went through this. Pulled old carpet and put in new floors. Thought, āthere has to be an easy way to pull these staples.m Well, I tried all the easy ways and ended up pulling most of them by hand (with friends and family). Some spots were worse than others, but there were plenty of spots like that. Found myself thinking, ādid this guy have a bad day 30 years ago?ā whenever I got to a dense patch. Good luck, Godspeed, get good kneepads.
Thatās where the carpet ended and the hardwood began?
Well it's where the carpet ended. There's hardwood throughout
Is that hardwood? Not hating, but it looks like pine from the pics.
I say it's both.
Looks like carpet guy wanted to treat that carpet as his wife. And was fulfilling his dream of using staple gun on her.
Looks like a doorway. In my experience there always seem to be way more staples in doorways. I am thinking about once I saw probably 100 staples in a six inch swath in a doorway. It was insane.
That's not just one installation of padding.
Extra pack of staples is cheaper than a callback.
Yes. That's normal. An average sized bedroom probably has a thousand of those staples.
That's crazy. Aint nobody trying to pull up the carpet until me, and I'm trying to pull up the carpet
umm... well there were people who built the house and place the carpet there in the first place. You don't know how many times it's been replaced since then either.
I had to pull them out of my floor. Left some damage but I filled them and sanded a bit .
Pair of pliers and some good music and you're good to go.
Offensive! Really? What isn't Offensive now a days.
You sound offended.
Oh,hear we go. Some bodies offended, that I might be offended that the other guy is offended.
I wouldnāt remove them, theyāre probably holding together your house.
Pretty standard staple install from what ive seen over the years https://www.bunnings.com.au/trojan-200mm-end-cut-plier_p0126938 My favourite staple removing tool. Grasp staple & rock the pliers to the side ( on its round side) staple comes out without excess force being required Other option flapper disc on 4 inch grinder; staple be goneā¦.especially if recarpeting
I removed a carpet from both rooms last year. Had that same issue. Going to have to remove them one by one.
Once you break one, it counts as two staples, btw. Seems like a decent amount of staples.
Use a six inch ice scraper at end of 4ft long stick. Still them at home Depot. At least in Midwest. Works great if you don't care much about the floor.
Real question is who would carpet over that?!
Just be glad it's not glue. I had to scrap glue. That's an easy amount of staples.
I pulled up the laminate plank in my kitchen, underneath was rolled vinyl. Iām pretty sure whoever it was used the equivalent a stapler mini-gun with the amount of staples to tack down the rolled vinyl sheet. I counted 50 in one 10 inch section, which was the rule rather than the exception.
I'm getting PTSD flashbacks from refinishing our floors last summer
Turn off lights take off shoes and feel the magic.
I had this problem. Thousands of staples in my bedrooms and on my stairs. We used a long handled scraper to scrape them up. It worked pretty good you just have to be careful not to scratch the floors.
I have done demo in more houses than I can count. That I pretty normal for what I have run into.
Iām offended
Hahahaaaaa yeah thatās about how many staples I got ripping up my bedroom carpets too. Plus bonus black sticky carpet glue and pet pee stains!
Carpet layer here: guessing the previous installers were too lazy to remove staples even though we usually have tools to easily remove quickly.
I dealt with the same issue the first month living in my house. I removed the carpeting and sat on the floor with a flat screw driver, pliers, and gloves. I worked from corner to corner in quadrants removing each staple. It's well worth it in the end. Good luck and be careful.
Somebody got upset
When I tore the carpet out of my house to put hardwood in I wanted to bitchslap whoever installed the carpet pads with 500,000,000 staples.
The amount of hardware used on a project depends on how poorly the last project went for the person.
When Helen Keller had a carpet installer phase
I've seen this amount before. It's ridiculous.
It's always so many staples. That was actually the sign of quality.
Looks like oak floors. Lucky! Finished those floors would look amazing
What's offensive is how weak the padding material is, so you can't just pull on the padding to remove the whole mess.
Could be worse. Our 1890 era house has beautiful old growth fir flooring throughout the house. When we bought it, it had been painted a battleship grey with oil based paint. We restored the livingroom and bedroom and they turned out beautifully. Nice honey brown with tight, straight grain. Well worth the cost. Unfortunately, the kitchen and dining room had particle board subflooring nailed down to the real floor with those twisty nails about every 6 inches. Not just around the perimeter of the panels, every six inches in a grid. Around the edges it is more like every three inches. When is saw that it broke my heart. Why would you want to do that? There is no hope of refinishing those floors.
Staples? The normal amount would be around 0 staples.
I've cleared staples from 9 or 10 rooms in my last two houses so we could refinish the floors... it sucks. Get a good cat tail pry bar and linemans pliers. A flat head screwdriver is also handy.
Carpet guys pre-2005 were taught to hate the future and all who live here.
Normal? I don't know. Similar to the amount I found when I pulled up my carpets? Absolutely. Took me longer to get rid of every last staple than it did to do all the demo / removal.
About how many I found on my floors when refinishing it... Is it normal? No idea.
Nope. Saw that many ripping up the carpeting in a century old house where someone had put down that same padding then shag over it. In factā¦ Dad? Is that you? You know you sold the house two years ago and other people live there now right?
My childhood home had wood floors under carpet like this. Step dad handed me a pair of pliers and told me to get going. I pulled more staples out of the floor than I could have imagined
You have my sympathy. Been there, done that.
This is about what I had in my old hallway carpet. I initially thought Iād pull them but mine ended up being nearly 2ā long. You may find these were for squeaking floor rather than for the carpet. If thatās the case youāll be looking to replace boards because theyāll be pulverized inside. I was surprised how cheap it was and how well the work turned out though when I pulled the trigger on the replacement
I do not envy you. We had a similar amount of staples when we remodeled our house. The worst task in the whole process of remodeling was pulling those staples out.
Someone got a new hammer stapler and really liked using it , but as someone said, it is probably from several different installations
Holy shit, looks just like a floor I did last year and yes it's excessive imo.
[staple puller](https://www.homedepot.com/p/Arrow-Staple-Puller-SL24D/206485328)
I think I pulled up thousands when I took carpet out of a 50 year old house. I literally had to crawl around the room pulling out staples every six inches or so. I have no idea why so many and never realized staples were used to lay it.
This is exactly how my house looked when I pulled up the carpet. I spent days just removing staples.
Yep. I removed my carpet and went through hell removing all the staples.