If you must(I have the same problem) but, haven't tackled it yet. There is a product called goo-gone. I will be trying it on a door that has glue on it , and get back to you.

I have had some success scraping linoleum glue off my wood floor in the kitchen after steaming a section with one of the new hand-held steam cleaners. Don't use a heat gun, though, the off-gases are nasty!

And make sure you have it all off before you try a floor-sander--the glue will liquify and completely coat your sandpaper before you even get to the wood, ruined in 20 seconds. And each piece of sandpaper for those machines is EXPENSIVE.

Carla in Sac

Awesome!!! I'm on the verge of doing a little happy dance right now!! Can't wait!!!

No, Kindred, curiousity didn't kill the cat! "The curious cat gets the worm"! (I'm a big believer in mixing my metaphors to get the answer I want, lol). I can't wait to hear how it goes - and how great it looks!
Probably NOT the same glue-stuff the was on my stairs, under the carpet. Does the adhesive look light or dark? This was light colored & whatever it held was long gone, it was old & not stuck to the new (gone) carpet. However - I DO actually have a point! While trying to decide how to get rid of it, I used warm soapy water and a sponge to clean the surface a bit, (mostly where there was no glue), and the stuff started coming off! Hot water dissolved it - whether w/murphys, simple green, OR no soap at all! I don't know how old yours is, or how long it's been stuck - but I hope yours is as much of a pleasant surprise as my stairs. The PO ("POS" I prefer to call'em) glued indoor/outdoor carpet to kitchen, utility, and both bathrooms. Black tar-looking glue & that was a beast! Was only on particle board subfloor they added, so didn't destroy nice wood. (Did pull up lots of the wood chip fragments - I almost wonder if the idiots didn't use counter-top adhesive, lol!). The best I can say about that guy right now, is that he didn't do THAT to the stairs! (The worst I can say, well.. Would get me kicked off the forum for sure!). ;-).
Best of luck to you!

I read years ago about somebody who removed asphalt (IIRC) floor tiles by spreading dry ice over the floor. He said that in just a few minutes the tiles were literally popping free. I wonder how that would work for old linoleum.

toolgorl, you're cracking me up with the mixed metaphor! I was kind of thinking along those lines,too. I can't wait to pull it up and see! I was only able to see 1/2 an inch or so, so I can't tell what kind of glue is there. I just know that the floor covering under the uglier than sin new stuff is stuck and ripping when I try to lift it. I'm hoping for a spring kitchen re-do. But off the kitchen is the basement, and there's the same floor covering at the top of the stairs ( a landing about 3' X 3' or so). I might have to pull the threshold (metal junk)up and see what I'm up against. Patience for this stuff is not my strong suit!
Davidr, that would be cool to try. I wonder if it would work.

oops...toolgirl, even. Sorry! Excited fingers don't type so well! :-)

My local tool rental store once advertised having a power scraper available that would do this - right after my husband spent three solid days sitting on the kitchen floor with a hands craper and heat gun.

What was under it was solid fir, but we live in lumberjack country and we surmise that someone once habitually wore their logscaling boots in the kitchen, which is where the back door comes in. It's really hacked up. Never mind, we refinished it and it's on display/in use. I suspect the next owners will cover it up or replace it - we might even do it.

But when you need to know, you need to know!

KarinL

A lot of the BLACK glue-looking stuff is what I call "mastick" and it is really persistent. I removed the asphalt tile (1950s era stuff) in a small kitchen, and it was a pain to do.

I used a hand scraper too. Not an elegant tool, but slow and sure. Hmmm, a power SCRAPER> Now if I have to do it again, I'll be checking out that option.

Sorry to be the stick-in-the-mud, but those of you who are removing "asphalt" tiles, may actually be removing asbestos containing tiles, and some of the methods I'm seeing discussed have the potential to pose health hazards to you and your family. Before removing or tearing out such floors it is prudent to have them sampled for asbestos. Asbestos can be in the tiles, the seamless flooring, and the mastic of many older homes. There are ways of dealing with this if it's present, but simply using methods that disturb the flooring without testing are problematic, and even illegal in many areas. For those who may be concerned about this, here's a link that provides more details, including how to safely remove and appropriately dispose of these materials.

Here is a link that might be useful: Asbestos containing flooring

kidzu9 that is a very good point ~ I hadn't thought to mention that. We do know that our kitchen flooring is actually vinyl (probably circa 1980's), but you can't be too careful. If it were the old asbestos type of tile you wouldn't want to just go tearing through it. One question, what is "mastic"? I can look it up, too. Thanks for the reminder/warning.

Mastic is the fancy name for the glue that holds down the flooring. And as for vinyl flooring, that frequently had asbestos in it, too. Just like the tiles, fibers were added to the vinyl to strengthen it, and, often, the vinyl flooring had a whole separate layer of asbestos that was an integral part of the material just under the vinyl surface. With older floors, the point is that you can't tell just by looking whether you have asbestos containing materials. If I had a house where the flooring was more than 20-25 years old, I'd have to recognize that as a possibility.