How to Clean Concrete Floor After Removing Carpet in 9 Simple Steps

If you’ve had the carpet glued to your concrete floor for the longest time, then chances are you’ll have a lot of cleaning up to do when it’s time to finally remove that covering. To know how to clean concrete floor after removing carpet, you need to prepare the right tools, loosen up the glue residue, do extensive troubleshooting before you finally mop the floor and leave it to dry.

True, cleaning your concrete floor after you’ve had it covered for a long time can be a pain. However, we’ve devised a simple 9-step guide you can follow to make this exercise a little easier for you.

9-Step Guide to Clean Concrete Floor After Removing the Carpet

Step 1: Prepare the Right Tools

As we’ve said, you’ve got a big job ahead of you. More precisely, getting your concrete floor clean can quickly become an even bigger hassle than it needs to be if you don’t have the right tools at hand.

So, you’ll need about eight tools or their equivalent at the ready if you want to handle this task properly.

We’ll be highlighting what these tools are and why they are necessary subsequently.

A very sharp, razor edge floor scraper: To remove the adhesives and glue residue that was used to attach the carpet to the floor.
A non-abrasive scrubber: To help with dislodging the particles of dirt.
A vacuum cleaner: For eliminating dust and other finer particles of dirt.
Personal protective equipment: This includes your nose mask, gloves and goggles – These tools are necessary because you may find yourself dealing with an airborne mold or adhesive situation.
Boiling water: For dislodging stubborn adhesive particles.
Non-toxic residue glue remover: For dislodging stubborn adhesive particles.
Dish washing soap: For the sanitation process.
Mop and bucket: For the cleaning process proper.

Step 2: Dislodge the Large Bodies of Adhesive Residue

After you’ve just removed your carpet from the concrete floor, depending on what type of glue or adhesive was initially used in the sealing process, you may find yourself faced with a mountain of glue marks.

This is why you’ll have to begin the cleaning process.

Once you have your protective gear on, pick that razor sharp floor scraper and start dislodging as much adhesive lumps as you can.

Remember that while it’s important to use a certain amount of force for this process, you should be careful as well as the last thing you want to do is hurt yourself or damage the face of your concrete while cleaning.

Step 3: Clear All Dust Particles

As you would expect, glue marks aren’t the only thing you’ll meet on your concrete floor; you’re likely to encounter a host of dirt and debris there as well. You have to eliminate these particles.

To do that, you can bring in your vacuum cleaner with a floor attachment.

Make sure that you run the vacuum cleaner from one end of the concrete floor to the next at least two times. This will ensure that no dirt and debris escapes your reach. This step is essential so that the next phase of cleaning has maximum effect.

Step 4: Pour Boiling Water on the Spots on the Floor

You would likely have noticed that when you scraped the floor initially, you weren’t able to get all the glue marks. The boiling water will help with that as it’ll be even more effective now that there isn’t any dirt to cover those adhesive spots.

So, all you have to do here is apply the boiling water directly on the glue marks you want to remove. Leave it to settle for two to three minutes before you try to scrape them off again.

It bears mentioning that boiling water isn’t the only way to dislodge stubborn glue spots. However, it’s better than the other alternatives because it’s considerably cheaper to employ and doesn’t leave any toxic residue in its wake.

That being said, a splash of hot water can scald you. So, make sure you’re very careful here.

Step 5: Free the Softened Up Glue Spots

A direct continuation of Step 4, you’ll need that non-abrasive scrubber to get the best effect here.

Once you’ve waited the required length of time for the boiling water to take effect, ensure that the spot is cool enough for you to safely touch and then use your scrubber to dislodge the loosened adhesives.

Step 6 : Introduce the Glue Remover

Sometimes, boiling water is all you need to eliminate those stubborn glue marks. But, in some cases, it doesn’t quite do the trick.

When you’re faced with the latter scenario, you’ll have to apply a heavy-duty glue remover to do the job.

But, as we mentioned earlier, these substances can be somewhat dangerous. Because of this, you need to make sure that your personal protective gear is intact and you have enough ventilation before applying these substances.

Also, make sure you read the product label very carefully so you know how to use the glue remover safely.

Step 7: Improvise

Although it’s rare, there are cases where adhesive marks still won’t budge, even with a glue remover. If you find you have such a situation on your hands, you could resort to using special resources like a heat gun, or, failing that a hot iron to attack the glue mark.

If that turns out unsuccessful too, you may have to settle for using a highlight coat or scored pattern to carefully hide the residue marks.

Step 8: Clean the Concrete Floor Properly

This is where your dish washing soap, mop, and bucket comes into the picture.

Simply pour some water into the bucket, add 3 or 4 table spoons of dish washing soap and then proceed to wipe down the entire length of the concrete floor with your mop.

Run over it two more times.

This will effectively remove all the tiny bits of dirt and debris left on the floor surface. During this process, be careful not to leave excess water on the concrete floor.

Step 9: Let the Floor Dry Properly

One reason it’s so important to leave as little water as possible on the floor surface is that too much water can delay the drying process.

What’s more, if the floor remains wet for protracted periods, a mildew problem could spring up.

So, make sure the floor dries thoroughly and then, you’re free to do whatever you want on it!

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that learning how to clean concrete floors after removing carpet can be a very hectic affair. But if you followed our steps, you should not only have a marginally easier time of it, you should also get very decent results as well!

But if you don’t want to go through all that stress, we recommend you reach out to a professional concrete floor cleaner. With the level of skill and experience that many of these professionals afford you, you’ll get a spotless floor fit for any needs you might have. Regardless of which way you go, we hope you end up with a sparkling clean floor!