If you are simply planning to throw away your water damaged carpet, you can save yourself A LOT of time and hassle in the clean-up process.

Using a box cutter / razor, carefully cut your water damaged carpet into 4 to 5 foot strips. As you cut, you will feel the razor grinding along the concrete or tile flooring. Do not try to save and/or ration razor blades by not hitting the concrete. You will end up with incomplete cuts through the carpeting and pad, which will cause you to do unnecessary and dangerous cutting as you roll up the carpet.

As blades dull, flip them over and carefully replace them with new and more efficient ones. For an average size job (equal to or less than 1500 square feet), you probably won’t need more than two or three blades.

Once you have properly sized carpet strips (4 to 5 feet), you must roll up the water damaged carpet and secure it with duct tape. For glue down carpet, you may need to use your hand scraper to remove the water damage carpeting from the sub floor. The glue may leave a sticky residue; however, don't worry about the glue as it will simply be covered by the new carpeting.

Haul the carpet rolls outside for your garbage service. They should have no problem disposing of the rolls if you kept the length between 4 -5 feet.

After you have the water damaged carpet out of your home,  you may want to remove the tack strips. If you were affected by black water, you must remove ALL affected materials, including tack strips.

 Tack Strips:

 In 95%+ of water damage cases, there is no need to remove the tack strips. The only reason you should remove them is if you are not going to replace the carpet, or the tack strips are extremely dry rotted (wood is black looking) and the tacks are rusted.

 

Using your crowbar and a hammer, carefully remove the tack strips. Put the "Y" of the straight portion of the crow bar near a concrete nail of the tack strip. Use the hammer to get the crow bar under the nail. Then simply use your body weight for torque on the crow bar, and the nail should become looser. If the nail does not completely become dislodged, simply repeat the process. However, be very careful of chipped pieces of concrete, wood, and nails that could become projectiles.

Once again, if you feel this is all a bit over your head or just seems a bit too tough, don't be afraid to find a water damage company and use the links on this website.