How old flooring is removed
- Furniture cleared or moved from the room first
- Carpet cut into manageable rolls for easier handling through doorways
- Gripper and tack strip prised up and checked for reuse or replacement
- Hard flooring lifted board by board or in whole sheets
- Old adhesive residue scraped or ground back if it will affect the new floor
- All waste bagged and removed from site by the end of the job
What's underneath is sometimes the real job
Uplift often reveals what's actually going on beneath the old floor — damp staining, uneven boards, or leftover adhesive from a flooring type fitted decades ago. Rushing past this stage to get to the new flooring quicker is how problems end up sealed underneath a brand-new floor rather than dealt with.
What helps us on the day
Clear routes through the house for carrying rolls and boards out matter more than people expect, particularly in flats with narrow hallways — a clear path to the door and parking nearby for our van saves real time on the job.
Older adhesive and asbestos-containing floor tiles
Some Fife properties from the 1960s and 70s still have old thermoplastic floor tiles beneath later flooring, which can contain asbestos and need identifying and handling correctly rather than simply lifted and binned — we flag this at survey stage if we suspect it so it can be dealt with safely before work continues.
What happens to the waste
- General carpet and underlay taken to be disposed of responsibly
- Timber and laminate offcuts separated where practical
- Metal gripper and tack strip removed for recycling where possible
- Van loaded and removed same day, nothing left behind