There was no more overwhelming task than removing staples from hardwood after removing carpet in my house. However, I could be a time savior by using a few handy tools to make my task easier. So, learn how to get carpet staples out of wood easily based on my experience.
Nothing is more joyous than seeing wood floors under the old carpet as it saves your money on flooring. But getting rid of every single staple stuck on the hardwood or plywood was always tricky for me.
I know it’s quite frustrating to bend on your knees spending hours removing thousands of staples one by one on the floor. No alternative out there to remove staples from wood once but to ease your pain and save your time and money. Also, remember to protect the wood finish from scratches throughout the course.
A bunch of methods helped me to get rid of even stubborn or broken staples sunk in the wood underneath the carpet padding. The right technique and tools led me to save my floors from damage.
I know what works best on my floor to make it staples free by trial and error. Here I will share every method ranging from traditional to most straightforward to pluck every tiny staple.
Using diagonal pliers
One of the life-saving tools in my toolbox that I bought to do the job without having another tool accompanied with. All I had to do is just reach the point and pull out every staple on the hardwood floor.
The reason that I recommend a diagonal plier is simply because it relieved me from my knee pain and saved time.
What are the things that I love about diagonal pliers?
- Simply because I have hardwood floors under the carpet all around my house. A diagonal plier is a heavy-duty tool to remove staples under my carpeting doing a fair job.
- Staples just need a little pressure of the plier to get popped out from the wood floor.
- Unlike other traditional methods, I didn’t want to spend days pulling staples out of the wood floor.
- No, another tool was needed to aid the plier while plucking the staples.
- Easy to hold from the grips but not rough enough to make a lot of blisters on my hand.
- It was my easiest task to clean a large area of the stapled wood floor within a few hours.
- It doesn’t scrape the wood finish and helps to safely remove everything that looked steel.
How much does it cost?
It is just really worth my money as I was going to spend it on a few tools. I highly recommend you to use it if you don’t want to stress yourself hard just to pull out tiny staples under the carpet.
It is highly affordable to any DIYer and worth every penny you are going to spend.
If you want to buy it from Amazon,
Traditional method – using screwdriver and plier
I had a tough time on one of the hardwood floors under the carpet padding. Because I had to remove nails and long staples which I used to bond hardwood to the subfloor.
Diagonal pliers did not help much as I’ve got many of them covered on the floor. So, this pair of tools were already in my toolbox.
First, I grabbed my flat head screwdriver and slide it under the top of each staple or nail, and lifted it a little bit from the floor. Then the plier helped remove the body of the staple or nail easily as it’s a good lifter to do the job.
Using upholstery staple remover with tack puller
There is no tool other than the most specialized one for the job if you can pull a few bucks from your pocket. So, I gave it a shot sparing an extra trip to the nearest store to buy a staple remover and a tack puller.
It helped me remove various types of staples and nails that penetrated the wooden floor under the carpet. The tack puller’s hook can easily slip on each side on top of each nail and lift it up quickly from the floor.
Then I only put a little pressure on the staple remover to pop the legs of nails completely out from the floor. I found no scratches as the tack puller didn’t rip the surface when it pulled out the nail.
Using knives or scraper
I had a hard time lifting some of the carpet staples after removing the carpet and padding from the hardwood floors. One of the simple methods that I used to lift the points of some of the staples is using a utility knife or a scraper.
A sharp blade of the knife could easily place beneath the point of the carpeting staple and pulls it a little higher off the floor. Scrapers also work in the same ways. But I do not recommend this whenever you see millions of staples sticking on your hardwood floor.
Using long-handled floor scrapers
If you have got plywood floors under the old carpet and padding like mine, I recommend you to use long-handled floor scrapers to remove staples. Because I don’t need to worry about wood finish, this was the easiest way to do removing staples without bending over for hours.
I just slide the sharp edge of the scraper under the points of carpet staples and pulled them out from the hardwood forcefully. Many carpet staples are removed easily within less time.
Final thoughts – How to get carpet staples out of wood
Whether it is an older or a newer house it’s not a big deal to remove carpet and padding just to find out millions of staples on wood floors. But there is a number of ways to remove carpet staples from hardwood under the old carpets.
I needed to refinish my wooden floors and install new carpets often in my home. So, I had to remove the carpet and found many staples and nails stuck on wooden floors.
I made sure that I used the right technique and tools to get rid of staples from wood as much as I could. Because if unattended old staples will not make new carpet installation stay last longer.
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