Gluesticks

How do you get carpet glue off of wood?

We decided to tear the carpet of of the stairs in our house, and there's a huge amount of carpet glue on the stairs now, Is there some kind of liquid chemical stuff that would work to help peel it off? It's pretty gummy at room temperature, but if we sand it it just gunks up the sander. Any suggestions? Would adhesive remover work?

Public Comments

1. If your stairs were always meant to have carpet on them they will be made out of 1 1/2" thick pine. Since it's a very cheap wood it would be easier, quicker and cheaper to just pull the treads off and replace with new pine or some other wood. If they are over oak treads or you definitely want to keep the originals you can rent a floor edging machine from Home Depot or your local equivalent. You'll want to start with 24 grit paper on it. It is very aggressive so all you're really doing with it is taking off the goop/gunk. I understand exactly what you're saying about the gumming up but this is a different machine and a different grit paper than you were using. You will go through some paper but overall it is the best procedure for this. After the 24 grit you'll want to progressively get less aggressive paper which will remove the sanding marks of the previous paper. When I sand treads I use 24,36,60, and then 80 or 100 to finish. After you're done with those grits on the edging machine you can use a random orbital sander with 100 grit paper to take out all of the remaining sanding marks. Outside of that you can try a paint stripper. Just make sure to follow all of the instructions to neutralize it if needed before you put any new top coat on it.
2. goo gone , acetone, freeze it with ice peel it off