karndean flooring

[EnlightenedOwl]

I have an old karndean floor in a bedroom which the plan is to rip out for a carpet to go down. The person who is doing the work thinks it will be ok to rip out. the carpet person thinks it will be an arse and I should just lay carpet over the top but I don't want to lay floor covering over floor covering. Anyone else ripped karndean out? How bad was it?

Ours was ripped out last year to put down new Karndean.
DH ripped it off. He is pretty good at DIY, but not that difficult at all from what he said, even if you're just ok at DIY. Bit of welly required peeling it off.
A person who lays Karndean can probably advise about easiest ways to peel it up.
Maybe varies with the glue used??

the guy who is taking it up is experienced trades and he didn't think it would be a problem it was just the way the carpet man said it. he made it sound like it would be mission impossible!!! I've taken a corner up and it seemed ok. Thanks for the reassurance.

If it's not damaged or causing a problem, why rip it out? It's a nice clean surface. I'd just put underlay & carpet on top. Think of it as an extra layer of insulation. 😀

I thought you could heat it with a hairdryer and it's relatively easy to get off?

It has been down a long time and unfortunately is damaged and scratched so is beyond repairing. I don't want to lay flooring on top of flooring really because it makes it more of a headache to get under the floor if you need to. Also it will mean ply underlay karndean carpet that's a lot of layers!

Oh, god, I started to rip it out - it's a nightmare! I'm trying to get to the floorboards underneath but I'd just lay carpet over it.

What were the problems you had getting it out?

Big relief!! It only took two hours to get it out basically sawed it up into pieces!

Oh, how did you manage it? Ours is glued to nailed down plywood. I'd just pull that up but need to take the Karndean off to see the joins in the plywood.

Builder did it with a power saw! The karndean is still stuck to the ply he just sawed out squares and lifted the ply with karndean still stuck on. There were a lot of nails standing proud so he's gone round and tapped them back in! He definitely needed the right tool for the job.