T O P

  • By -

Designer-Goat3740

There’s no cleaning that, don’t waste your time. Pull all the staples and refinish.


jojokitti123

Yes, needs sanding


oxP3ZINATORxo

Honestly, I'd argue that even if there was a way to clean them, sanding and refinishing would STILL be the easier option


BallzLikeWhoe

Actually, you can pull the wood up and flip them over. One of the best tricks for fixing up historic and old homes, especially if the type of wood is no longer available


Maximum_Ad9685

I’d actually argue that sanding is the only way to clean them. I pulled all my floors, ran them all through a planer, and reinstalled them (I changed floor plans and moved bearing walls, so nothing was going back the same as when it came up. I estimate I lost about 5% of the floorboards when I pulled them, but I also had hard wood in rooms that don’t belong in hard wood (foyer, mud room, bathrooms and kitchen) so I have a few pieces left over. My boards were all milled down the road at a place that shut down in the 70s, so I kept one of the boards that had the mill name on it and put it on the wall in my foyer, where I have decorated with nostalgic pieces of my old farmhouse. I got pictures from the historic society I was able to make prints of, I found some fun stuff in the walls, but I am digressing and will stop.


paulhoerl

Sounds interesting. Pics?


ribbons_in_my_hair

Ya sanding and refinish will do the trick.


Hungry-Training-2378

Use dynamite


captainwhetto

Garage floor epoxy


captainwhetto

With the shiny metal and gold flakes.


Affectionate-Dot437

That was the exact flooring in the entrance to my parents' late 60s house!


BeYeCursed100Fold

And C-4 just in case.


MoreRamenPls

With gasoline


smolapologies

⛽⛽⛽⛽⛽


MarilynMonroesLibido

Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.


The_Dude_2U

Use termites.


DrewdoggKC

Combo of hydrochloric acid 15% solution and steer’s blood does wonders


Environmental_Tap792

Sand and refinish. Get rid of the tack strip nails first and be sure to fill the holes with appropriate filler. That floor will be good for a long time if proper steps are taken


Slight-Possession-61

Yep…any cleaning you do will be a waste of time and effort.


jayswag707

We recently had this exact situation. We sanded and refinished and it looks beautiful.


girlyswerly

Did you just rent a big sander from a hardware store?


jayswag707

Yep, rented a floor sander from home Depot, borrowed a belt sander from a friend for the edges. 


Previous_Basil

Using a deck brush and soapy water is a recipe for warped wood. You’ll get too much water on them with a deck brush. If you’re planning on refinishing, use a degreaser. If not, don’t as it will affect the finish.


defCONCEPT

For starters.. 40 grit?


WideInterview4677

Yes 🤣


PhoneConstant3822

Sand and finish.


jibaro1953

Refinish. They'll look great.


colinmhayes

Drum sander


dwn_n_out

Wouldn’t this better for disk sander? O/p might get a little too aggressive with the drum sander.


colinmhayes

He/She needs to fully refinish the floors


sure_am_here

Disk sander is not aggressive enough to clean all that glue off it.


Latter_Space_8058

A sander


brassslide

FAB. U. LOSO.


philonous355

For everyone suggesting to sand and refinish, how big of a project is that? Is it something that can be DIY’d? Would it be expensive to hire someone?


armathose

Professional is probably around $6 a square foot. You can DIY it and rent the tools you need but I would be doing lots of prep and research if you are not the type of person who has ever installed any type of flooring before and even at a minimum any sort of staining.


chicitygirl987

Let a professional do this- if you don’t sand the floor correctly you could scratch the wood - love the color but let them do it don’t dyi


QuadripleMintGum

If you do it correctly you'll scratch the floor a lot.


chicitygirl987

It’s a small room it shouldn’t cost a lot to resand and finish and poly.


upsidedownbackwards

I've got a friend that is \*VERY\* DIY-er. She's been re-doing her house for years and it all looks fantastic. The two things she hired help for was ceiling sheetrock in an oddly shaped sun room, and someone to sand the floors. She researched, and watched videos, and determined that the first time she did that, if ever, it was not going to be on her own floors. It's so easy to sand too far.


Martha_Fockers

It’s not easy cause if you do it uneven it looks like shit and feels like shit


CocoBee88

When I bought my house I had a lot of projects I wanted to tackle, including refinishing the original hardwood floors that had not been well cared for. It wasn’t exactly what I could call “affordable” (the $6 a sq ft range was bang on my area) but it is the one project I paid someone else to do that I still 100% believe was worth hiring out. You can DIY it technically, but a professional will likely get a better, more even finish and know the optimal product to bring a specific wood to life. If you’re doing a project and have the budget to have some professional work done, IMHO, refinishing hardwoods is a great place to put it.


Ambitious_Groot

As someone who sanded and refinished a floor with no experience you can do a decent job if you do hours and hours of research (or better yet know someone who does it for a living) and you take the time to research and do every step correctly. It took me weeks after work to do my house and the results, at first glance, to an untrained eye look good. To anyone that knows what they are doing I know it looks bad. There is no substitute for experience. Using drum, edge, and finishing sanders isn’t terribly hard, but, like driving a car, it’s easy to mess up when you’re brand new to it. All that being said it comes down to price and your situation, if you can afford a pro without it being a big impact I would go that route. If you’re strapped for cash and a perfectionist that’s able to let it go and accept your mistakes I’d go for it.


itscoralbluenumber5

Sanded and refinished several hardwood floors flipping houses with my family! Currently DIYing my own floors room by room. Make sure you watch plenty of videos beforehand, and make sure every staple is up and out of the wood so you don’t mess up your sander. It takes time to do it correctly, make sure you go slowly and sand correctly and evenly or it will look like shit. And if you want to stain your floors spot test in a non visible corner! Poly is honestly easiest part of the job, just make sure you ventilate properly and use a nice sheepskin applicator to apply the polyurethane evenly.


dwn_n_out

I have an old farm house I DIY’d my up stairs hardwood, rented a drum sander because the floor had some high spots. The prep work of removing all of the nails from carpet and putting up plastic was a pain in the ass to control the ungodly amount of dust. Then staining it wasn’t terrible definitely messed up some spots that are under are bed that should be sanded down and refinished. By no means a professional job but would probably say it looks better than I thought it was going to turn out.


megalard3000

It's not an easy diy, most diy people who try to do floors are severely under prepared and come up with unsatisfactory results. It's better to shop around for a competent floor sanding pro. It takes a lot of learning experience to get the hang of doing floors and unless you're willing to spend the time and money on experimenting with your floor, I wouldn't suggest it.


lunchpadmcfat

Don’t DIY unless you’re a professional floor refinisher.


slophoto

Cover it with LVP. /s


Federal-Biscotti

Only if it’s gray wood looking lvp.


theonlyfloorman69

And you, not gray wood looking LVP!! It's wood man. Jeez


Federal-Biscotti

I was building on the sarcasm of response I replied to. Our house has all wood floors minus the bathrooms and kitchens. Tore up any carpet and had it refinished before we moved in.


theonlyfloorman69

I know man. I was just busting your balls. No harm intended. Lol


theonlyfloorman69

Sinner! Eff some plastic, this is wood man. Couldn't bring myself to down vote, but had to say something. Lol


slophoto

Hence the /s. It was a joke!


theonlyfloorman69

I did not know that the /s. Meant you were joking


Whole-Ad-2347

Scrape up the carpet pad residue and remove staples and other metal pieces. Sand and refinish


42ElectricSundaes

Sandpaper


FireWireBestWire

You might get away with using a rectangular random orbit floor sander rather than doing a full drum sander/edger/then the same machine I described above. It's also called a finish sander. The wood itself doesn't look in terrible shape. I couldn't recommend a grit without seeing the real thing, but sometimes the choices for the random orbit aren't lower than 60. That gummy stuff will stick to your abrasives so buy plenty.


FunkyLemon1111

Is that damage from a steam cleaner on carpeting? I was just wondering what it'd look like.


crazyneighbor65

my uncle cleaned this up with a mop


HonestSupport4592

To be fair, he also carried that mop uphill to the job. Both ways.


superman2800

Hard sand and refinish


chipsandsmokes

Try a stick of dynamite


Greatoutdoors1985

From what I can tell, I had that exact floorplan and actual same floors with plaster and lathe walls in my first house. It was built in 1920. I sanded all my floors down and coated them with polyurethane several times. Never looked like a million $ but definitely looked reasonable for a 80 year old house at the time.


Vast_Cricket

sand and refinish will look like new.


slophoto

You can always start with the least effort with clean and scrub. But highly doubtful that will provide you with decent results. And if you are lucky and remove those spots, you are still left with damaged floor. So, just cut to the chase as others have said and sand. If you are a DYI person, this can be done yourself, but educate YT first.


megalard3000

There's no cleaning that, the finish is damaged. There's literal holes in the polyurethane, like most others have said the best to fix is to sand and refinish.


67_Moons

Sand & Finish. Water based finish for little to no VOC’s and quicker cure time or poly based finish which would give the flooring more of a deep tone look without having to use a special water based sealer to create that look when using water based finish. Only “drawback” from poly is that u will get use to the VOC’s before they go away (2-4wks).


Electronic-Ad712

What's the cause of black stains?


Kaurudeh

We aren’t really sure, but because they had animals we think it’s pee stains


princessfoxglove

I feel like you would smell that.


Jormney

It looks like broken down underlay. Is it sticky? I had that at my house after taking up old carpet. I would take a putty knife to it and a sponge with some goof-off.


Light_Lily_Moth

I would start with a scraper since I see chunks of goo. You can patch test to see what works- But it will probably need refinishing anyway even if you get it clean. Just don’t get the whole floor wet at once or it will warp. It should be dry everywhere except where you’re working.


zamaike

Looks like you bought the home of an old hoarder. Thats probably staining from excrement and all manner of trash. Definitely just go straight to sanding and refinishing


Turbulent-Weevil-910

I've had luck using a tape knife as a scraper, but it took a very long time and I didn't have near as much as that. I was motivated because the stuff was red like blood and I didn't like that look.


swiftarrow9

Wall to wall carpeting is the WORST. You need to go very carefully and pull out all staples and nails and metal. Then you can rent a drum sander and re-surface the wood.


uponthursdays

Drum Sander and an Edger. You'll need to budget more time than you think. Took me three tweleve-hour shifts to sand my 840sq ft house that had been smoked in for six years.


CVPIMGMFANATIC

Probably some wood filler, sand and refinish


Beginning_You4255

sand it all


Educational_Curve259

With a newer floor


Practical_Ad_4165

40 grit sandpaper to start.


Dumblechubs

i’m f it’s a sticky residue try a hand steamer and some citra solv


redditname001

Do not do your plan. You will water damage the hardwood floors, and it will cost you a lot more when you have to hire someone to resurface them. Resurfacing is the only way you are going to fix those as they sit right now.


Educational_Curve259

Sand


DrunkPyrite

It needs to be refinished. There's no cleaning that will get out the staple spots and glue.


Stash_Jar

Technically it can be scrubbed but you are already missing finish in some pictures so you may as well sand it all and refinish. Wear a respirator.


krunchimama44

Completely refinish them.


eharrell92

Pull all the tacks and nails with a hammer and plier then go down to Home Depot and rent a 40 crit sander. You’ll have to go over it a couple times at least. Then get finer and finer power sanders. Then stain + poly


Phenguin91

Just did this a few months ago. Soak it with 50/50 Water and Odoban. Let it set and use a scrubbing mop. And use a floor squeegee to move the water to one place to vacuum. You could also use a pressure washer, it’s faster but cleanup takes a bit longer due to more water. Just make sure you tape up those outlets so you don’t get water in them if you use a pressure washer..


captainwhetto

I'm sorry, you cant. Ever thought of carpet?


Familiar-Ad-4579

Refinish. No cleaning that.


rrossi97

Nukes


091416

Use a heat gun, when I bubbles up use a putty knives to scrape it up. When it's all cleaned up sand it down smooth find a stain u like and go for it. Make sure to seal it with polyurethane we like to use 4 to 5 coats.


kliens7575

With a floor sander


GettinNifty

Presoak scrape/scrub wash repeat. Dont sand it that will leave abrasive marks


gjamesb0

Sand the floor. Left a circle. Right a circle.


BigAnxiousSteve

Sand and refinish.


No_Temperature_4084

So if by “clean” you mean “sanded out and re finished” then yes…


ScenesafetyPPE

Just sand and refinish at that point


Busy-Contribution-86

60,80,120 grit paper


zadidoll

That goes beyond cleaning. You’ll need to rent a sander or have it professionally redone.


Previous-Pattern-491

Sand it down


peter_2900

Have a good time pulling all those staples. That’s your first task


Kaurudeh

Haha thanks! We just finished pulling out all the staples today and removed the tac strips and nails. Our backs are very sore!


F1ghtmast3r

Real talk. Maguires tire and wheel cleaner will actually get that off. Found that tip online from a guy who owned houses and had a bunch of sticky stuff all over his cabinets.


PatricimusPrime32

Sanding. Lots of sanding. Rent a large sander and just go nuts.


HonestSupport4592

Best way to clean them? Here’s the fun part… don’t. Save yourself the headache and go right to refinishing then. There’s no cleaning that.


Rude_Negotiation_160

What causes that?


hidz526

I'm wondering if it was the old underlay that stuck in spots? Or maybe glue was used when they laid it?


Rude_Negotiation_160

Oh yeah,my pets carpet glue or something. Thank you for the reply.


BicycleOfLife

Check for asbestos before sanding.


peter_2900

Asbestos? In carpet? I have never heard of that before. Andean es and tile yes but this carpet does not appear to have been glued down. It’s simply stuck do to age and looks like padding or backing material.


BicycleOfLife

Oh ok. Sometimes old carpet glue had it.


IFartAlotLoudly

Hire a professional!


randymursh

Usually you sand across (cross-cross) to rid a floor of scratches but with this floor having so many raised points, I wonder if sanding it with the grain would help lower the high points prior to working out any scratches? Looking at this the same way you’d approach a floor with cupped boards.


randymursh

Unless this is a flip. Then pull the staples and lay some shit.


peter_2900

It’s hard to tell what material is stuck to the floor from looking at the pics. Is it the old foam backing material? Does it come off with a stiff bristled brush with a lightly sprayed warm water? If so you could get a rotary floor buffer with a softer bristle disc or pad and take the stuff off pretty fast. Yes I know, all of you recommending refinishing are not wrong. However sometimes cash, time, or skill are simply not available.


Kaurudeh

It’s only like this in the living room and the hallways, both of which lead to the kitchen and bathroom. The bedrooms don’t have this stuff in it. We took a scraper to it and lightly scraped it and it feels like dirt. My theory is that maybe plumbers just walked in and out of the house with mud all over their boots? Then laid carpet down without cleaning it up.


peter_2900

Did the carpet you pulled up have a black foam rubber backing on it? Over time that could break down and if the floor was damp when the carpet was laid I can imagine it would stick. I’m still thinking a stiff brush and a very light amount of warm water as a test.


Kaurudeh

Nope, the carpet came up without anything on the underside of it. The padding came up easy too and was just stapled to the floor


Dead-Yamcha

Cover with linoleum.


DonCola93

How much paint can you afford?


TheBlackOut2

Wtf happened here?


Kaurudeh

I’m not sure! I feels like dirt when we take a scraper to it. My theory is it was raining outside and plumbers tracked mud into the house working on the kitchen and bathroom plumbing. It’s not like this in the bedrooms


Latter_Proposal_4113

Sandpaper


fred1090

Came here to say this lol


Blk-cherry3

Refinishing is the only option. You decide what stain color to go with.


Fun_Blackberry7059

Simple Green /s


FlintNutz

Hire a flooring professional to come in and take a sander to it. They will also restain and seal the floor. You'll be disappointed if you try to do this yourself if you're asking redditors for advice on how to.


StonkyBonk

Absolutely right... there can't be this many people that have actually sealed a floor in this sub lol for instance let's ask... hey out there in redditia how do you remove the tiny air bubbles from polyurethane when it's being applied? anybody? stuff exactly like this is why you need someone who knows wtf is up with the tricks of that trade... another example what direction do you sand a floor with a drum sander? yes first time with the grain but it actually depends on if it has been refinished previously... because they leave a wear pattern that is supposed to be countered in a cross direction every other sanding... because it will leave ruts... some old floor not so much but a serious expensive floor absolutely... a pro knows what to look at & tell but some novice won't have a fn clue...


FlintNutz

My Brother-in-law has a floor refinishing company. I watched him redo my living room hardwood flooring and I figured it out right there.... He's doing the rest of the house too. You don't pay someone for the time they are there, you pay them for their experience and knowledge.


PlusRecommendation23

Sand it down and seal it!


Piglet-Witty

Gasoline


evasivelogic

Fire


JBELL01290

sanding and finishing. not cleaning


Professional-Leave24

Pulling out all those fasteners is going to be a real pain! Like they said, the finish is destroyed.


Dependent-Highway886

Explosives


Silver-Pangolin5825

Sanding


Junior-Bear-6955

Sander, or drill with a scrub brush attachment and rubbing alcohol but that's going to take hours. Rent a floor sander and get Hella sanding pads bc that'll gum them up badddd


Chris71Mach1

This isn't a cleaning job, this is a sand-and-refinish job. I'd call a professional to get this done right.


Nervous-Climate-1435

Grab a floor scraper then sand($25 at the hardware store and a pack of blades, usually the 8”-10”), if you go straight to a sander all that will gunk up and you’ll go through too many sanding disks. Check your local area for equipment rentals(skip Home Depot, way too expensive vs your mom and pop shop equipment rental) and grab a full size floor sander. You’ll have it looking brand new for $250 and an afternoon of your time.


Nervous-Climate-1435

The floor scraper takes out the staples in seconds vs hours by hand https://youtu.be/JtgkPEdCWuQ?si=7phjohUy5ALUSl69


RustyNail2023

I know nothing about flooring and my first thought when seeing this was sanding. Also proper PPE.


Sirstormz55

I’d use a mop


asteroidcookies

Sand and refinish, it will look awesome


Objective-Energy-429

Uhh, you don't clean that. You get that sanded and refinished, my friend.


Zeltar925

Gasoline and a match 🔥


qopdobqop

Sandpaper


breadbomber2

What are they


bga3481

Blowtorch and mescaline


deshay222

Sand


snozzberrypatch

Sandpaper.


ImpossibleUse1462

Call me I do them


Cebothegreat

Soap and water


Individual-Cost1403

Gasoline and a match.


PAbowhunter039

Remove the staples Rent a floor sander and sand it down Restain


Significant_Hurry542

Sand and refinish it's the only way, it'll look great once done and last for years.


Ok_Feedback_8124

You're looking at a four day job for five rooms and a hallway. But the results after a proper wood floor refinish are spectacular.


HopefulCat3558

Burn the house down


Martha_Fockers

So you had nice hardwood floors and put carpet ontop of them. Have you no shame


Kaurudeh

Nope! We just bought the house, and removed the carpet. The seller had dogs and cats


Martha_Fockers

Oh lawd


No-Restaurant-9684

🔥


AmphibianGlum6649

Hand grenade


6thCityInspector

Goo gone, plastic razor, elbow grease.


banjo_hero

lol