HOW TO | JEANNE HUBER
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1.I live in a garden condo built in 1939 that has to conform to the Old Town Alexandria architectural review board. The concrete front porches and steps were covered with glued-down, indoor-outdoor carpet. It is splitting and coming up in places. Can the carpet be removed and a more appropriate covering applied? I am afraid we have destroyed the surface for any other application. Heavy-duty paint or slate or even brick would be so much better than the indoor-outdoor carpet.
Alexandria
Paul Cain, who answers technical questions for the W.W. Henry Co., which makes carpet adhesives, suggests pulling up the carpet and grinding off the adhesive residue so that you have a clean base for another kind of covering.
There are products that dissolve the kind of adhesive used for indoor-outdoor carpet. But concrete is porous, so you won't be able to remove all of the residue, and it will leach out and ruin whatever you install later.
To remove the adhesive mechanically, use a seven-inch grinder with a diamond cup and a shroud connected to a vacuum. Home centers and tool companies rent out these.
A decorative concrete company could prep the surface and install a thin concrete resurfacing material, which would be less slick than paint. It could be tinted or even embossed to resemble brick or stone. Or a tile-setter or mason could prep the surface and install thin brick tiles, which are just a half-inch thick. You'd need something thin to avoid an awkward height change at the door.
