Carpet Padding Removal in Boise

Carpet padding does a different kind of damage than the carpet sitting on top of it. Carpet just wears out. Padding breaks down. Foam pad dries out and crumbles, rebond pad delaminates into loose rubber crumbs, and any padding that's taken on moisture or pet odor over the years turns into a different kind of problem - one that's usually stapled or glued flat to the subfloor underneath.

That's why padding removal in Boise is often its own job, even when the carpet itself pulls up easily. The padding is the part that tells you what's really been going on with that floor.

Where It Goes After It Leaves the House

Padding isn't sorted out for recycling the way scrap metal or clean lumber is. Once it's pulled up, it goes into the general construction and demolition debris stream, which in Ada County means a trip to the Ada County Landfill at Hidden Hollow, off Seamans Gulch Road in the North Boise foothills.

A load that's just padding and carpet moves through fairly simply. A load that also includes tack strip, baseboard, or old plywood underlayment gets sorted by material before it's dumped, since the landfill separates out clean wood and scrap metal from general debris. Mixed loads take more handling on-site, which is part of why a clean padding-only pull tends to go faster than a full flooring teardown.

What Actually Moves the Time and the Price

A few things make padding removal quicker or slower in any given house, and none of it comes down to a flat rate.

How the padding is attached matters more than people expect. Stapled padding pulls up in sheets. Glued-down padding, which shows up more in older installs and in rooms that had radiant heat or a slab floor, has to be scraped off the subfloor piece by piece. Moisture or mold changes the handling too - wet or moldy padding has to be bagged and treated differently than dry padding, which adds time regardless of square footage.

Access plays a role as well. A ground-floor room with a straight shot to a truck or trailer moves faster than padding that has to come down a narrow stairwell or through a finished basement. Whether the carpet is coming out in the same visit, how many rooms are involved, and the landfill's weight-based disposal structure all factor into the final time and cost too.

What Shows Up Under the Carpet in Boise's Older Homes

Boise's housing stock is old enough in some neighborhoods that what's under the carpet varies a lot block to block. North End and East End bungalows and Victorians from the early 1900s sometimes have original hardwood or fir subfloor under there, which changes the plan entirely if it turns out to be worth refinishing instead of covering back up. Bench and West Bench homes from the 1950s and 60s - the brick ranches and mid-century builds - more often have padding glued or stapled straight to particleboard underlayment. Newer construction in West Boise, Southeast Boise, and Barber Valley tends to have padding in better shape overall, simply because it hasn't had as many decades to break down.

• Original hardwood or fir subfloor under carpet in older North End and East End homes
• Tack strip stapled directly into the subfloor around room edges
• Padding glued flat in rooms that once had radiant heat or sit on a slab
• Water staining or odor near exterior walls, basements, or old plumbing lines
• Multiple layers of padding or underlayment left behind from a past remodel
• Loose staples scattered across the subfloor once padding is pulled

However it's attached and whatever's underneath, the padding is usually the part of a flooring job that takes the most judgment call, not the carpet. Boise Carpet Removal can take a look and give you a free estimate before anything comes up.