Glue removal on resi

[Ed E]

Have an appointment next week with a lady who has glue stuck to her carpet. Unsure as to the type of carpet or the type of glue. Told her I would come look at it, but I honestly don't have any experience at removing any type of glue. Any suggestions?

[MikeB]

If it is a cut pile or frieze style carpet you might be able to snip it out with duck bill scissors or a sharp utility knife.
It depends on how far down the fibers it went. If its sitting on the tips of the fibers it should be easy. I have done this with expandable foam on a frieze recently and came our great. If it penetrated down farther though, obviously that won't work.

[Hoss]

It also depends on the glue stick used. If it is a low-temperature glue stick, you might be able to use heat to soften it and pull it out if the melting point/softening point is less than the carpet fibers. A hot-knife and a good hot-melt glue gun are nice little tools to have. I use glue sticks to repair seams and fraying in commercial carpeting along with a carpet seam roller. It works very well and although it creates a strong adhesion and stops fraying, it does not melt the fiber.

[JuddBowers]

Or freeze it and scrape it up. Liquid nitrogen will work.

[encapman]

I have found that most sticky stuff - adhesives, gum, wax, tar, etc. can most easily be removed with a simple 2 part approach.

1. Freeze the sticky stuff using a freeze spray. Freeze the spot and gently chip the bulk of the frozen residue from the fiber. (We have an excellent gum freeze spray in the Releasit line) http://www.excellent-supply.com/Releasit..._p_62.html

2. Apply a small dab of solvent gel. CTI Pro Solve Gel works great for this. Rub the spot gently with a towel, blotting up the gel and any remaining residue from the fiber. http://www.excellent-supply.com/CTI-Pros..._p_52.html. Then just encap like normal.

In my years in our commercial cleaning business we've cleaned TONS of gum in this manner. My craziest moment using this method was in a Disney Store. They had a cool structural ceiling in the store which was completely exposed and open to the under side of the roof. Well the store had some roofers working up on the roof and somehow they managed to drip hot tar through the roof and it landed on the carpet. (Incredibly it didn't melt the nylon fiber.) When I arrived there was a hard layer of tar about 8" wide. First I under-promised! Then I took plenty of time freezing and chipping. After the majority of the tar had been removed from the surface, I then used a solvent gel to remove the remaining tar stain from the fiber - dabbing and blotting, dabbing and blotting, dabbing and blotting. The spot took about an hour of slow and careful work. But it all came out. After removing the tar, I then encapped the carpet like normal. I'm not kidding - it turned out perfect!

[Ed E]

Thanks for the wisdom, gents. The lady is on my schedule for next Thursday. I will let you know the outcome.