4 Tips for Removing Heavy Duty Construction Adhesives

adhesive caulking
  • 1-3 hours
  • Beginner
  • 0-100

Heavy duty construction adhesives and their residues can be quite difficult to remove from surfaces. Fortunately, there are ways to remove heavy duty construction adhesives without damaging the surface of your floors, walls, and panelings. To help you remove stubborn adhesive residue, here are some tips.

1. Scrape the Adhesive off Paneling, Molding, and Floor

To remove small amounts of construction adhesives from your paneling, molding and floor, use a putty knife to scrape the adhesive off. Just be careful not to drive the edge of the knife too hard on the surface to avoid causing damage.

If the adhesives do not come off easily from tiles, try to use rubbing alcohol or acetone to help lose up light construction adhesives. Nonetheless, they may not be so effective in removing heavy duty adhesives. Moreover, alcohol or acetone may damage painted surfaces, so be careful when using these substances.

2. Use Industrial Grade Adhesive Remover

The best way to remove heavy duty construction adhesive is to use industrial grade adhesive remover. Since most industrial grade adhesive removers contain strong chemicals, always test the solvents on a small hidden area to make sure that the solvents will not cause damage on your walls or floors. Adhesive removers usually come with sponge applicators and built-in scrapers, so you need not buy additional tools.

When applying adhesive remover, use the sponge application to apply the solvent. After applying the solvent, wait for a few minutes before you try to scrape off the adhesive from the surface. Some types of heavy duty construction adhesives do not melt easily when exposed to adhesive removers.

If the adhesives on your walls or floors do not melt easily, apply ample amount of adhesive remover on the affected area and leave the solvent on the surface for about an hour. After one hour, gently scrape off the adhesive from the surface.

3. Blast off the Adhesive with Water

Stubborn construction adhesives on rocks, bricks, and other hard materials can be removed by blasting the surface with a high-powered water pressure system or through sand blasting. Water pressure and sand blasting work well, but they can also leave some marks on the surface of the rock, bricks and other hard materials.

Sand blasting can also leave ugly scars on your walls and floors, so use this procedure only when you really have to. If areas on your floor or walls have uneven colors after you applied water pressure or sand blasting to remove the construction adhesive, you may have to repaint those areas to even up its colors.

4. Apply Heat on the Affected Area

Heat can help melt stubborn adhesives without damaging the surface of your floor or wall. To remove the construction adhesives from your walls or floors, gently scrape off the adhesive while you apply heat on the surface of your floor or wall.

Do the scrapping only while the surface is hot. Note that once the surface is cold, the construction adhesive tends to harden, so it becomes difficult for you to remove it without damaging your floor or wall.