Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - Removing sheet linoleum from wood flooring...

We have linoleum in our kitchen and breakfast room that is probably 50 years old. The home is 70 years old.

When we had central heating put in and floor vents were cut in the floor - we were able to see a cross section of the floor.

There is the same 2" planks under the linoleum but above the subfloor in the cross section. The same as what is throughout the rest of the house.

Question: Any suggestions for getting this sheet linoleum (? - yellowish color) up and cleaning the wood floors for use?

Go to your local home improvement center and ask for adhesive remover. It's rather caustic (i.e., ventilate the room well, wear gloves and a mask), but it did a great job on our floor. We had a 4' x 4' section at our entry door that had sheet vinyl on it, and this stuff took it right up. I still had to put a little elbow grease to it to scrape it all up, but the sander removed all traces.

I highly recommend renting an ORBITAL sander as opposed to the belt sanders. Orbitals are a little slower, but ours didn't seem to be as dusty as belt sanders AND orbitals will not gouge your floors, a big plus in my opinion.

A word of caution here. Most vinyl floors installed in the late 70's or before are likely to contain asbestos. You should not attempt to take this up if it does. I would be sure what I am dealing with first. You should contact a professional by looking in the yellow pages under Asbestos Removal/Abatement for there advice.

Does the same hold true for "hard" plastic tile? I
have a thin tile floor on a concrete slab
I'm going to put hardwood over -

Do you think I need to take the tile up, and, in any case, do I really need 3/4" plywood before the hard wood.

Thanks for the advice. Doug