I have a mid fifties home in California that I recently purchased. Under the carpet are the original red Oak floors. However, the floors have been covered since maybe the seventies. The first rubber waffel style carpet padding still exists and in some large areas is fused to the floor. I have tried Heavy duty scrapers, putty knives, Goof Off, Paint thinner, Rubbing Alcohol, acitone, Citri Strip, and my heat gun. Only the heat gun and the Rubbing Alcohol did any good. Heating the padding causes alot of Fumes and still it is extremely labor intensive.
At this rate it could take three weeks just to get this stuff up. Am I resigned to having carpet??? Is there any other good chemical products to remove this Very Pertified Padding???
Im kind of discouraged at this point. Can any one help??
Thanks

Most likely the floor needs to be resanded as you may have guessed. A professional should be able to bring that floor back close to its original bueaty. Dont know about Cali but you probally could have the floors refinished for the near the price of decent new carpet and pad installed.

Back in the day a lot of people got into making rubber pad .. Problem was the cheaper brands were adding clay to the rubber to give it density , and save money .. agree with K d sand it We had 8 price increases in Carpet in the last 3 months .. No bang for the buck there ..

Wow this could get confusing real quick!! Another Floor Guy what are the odds.

A plastic scraper, and rubbing the soles of old tennis shoes works to get it down enough to put a sander on it.

Not confusing anymore floor guy .. sorry dident know name was taken ..