Strip old carpet from pontoon deck

[PW]

Living in Michigan and not having a heated garage limits work on the pontoon to boating season (Memorial Day to Mid-Oct). The boat is in the water, and because I have to pay for hauling, it will stay there for now. Any tips on how to pull the very threadbare old carpet? There is no power at the dock, and I'm very careful about keeping pollutants out of the lake. It's a 1984 Flotebote/'84 Evinrude 30. The deck is solid, it's never been a beauty queen and putting down new carpet it purely for comfort/safety, not for looks. The boat floats, goes and my friends and family love it. If I gotta wait and take it out of the water early so I can work on it in my driveway, no prob. Many thanks for your help, PW

 

[ahicks]

Well, the entire structure from the deck up is generally removed for a re-carpet job. I'd want good power available for starters, and a place to temporarily store a bunch of big parts for a few days....

 

[dubs283]

Like ahicks says, to do it right everything comes off the deck

Fencing, seats, helm (including controls, steering and electrical), side brackets/rubrail, etc. Not a task to be performed on the water.

Quick and easy would be simply covering old carpet with new, cut to fit around fixtures/rigging

 

[1960 Starflite]

New deck and vinyl only correct way.

 

[Scott Danforth]

Being a 1984, plan on replacing some of the deck too if the deck is plywood

Recarpet requires removing the fence, seats, console, rub rail and nearly all hardware

From there you will pull wiring, etc . Then if your deck is good, you will be using acetone and scrapers to remove the old glue

if your deck needs replacement, skip the glue cleanup and screw dow. The new deck sheeting

Then you glue the carpet, reinstall all the wiring, hardware, fence, upholstery, etc

This is not something you will be doing in the water. It's a dedicated 2-weekend job for 2 people in a well lit work area

 

[ahicks]

Being a 1984, plan on replacing some of the deck too if the deck is plywood

This is not something you will be doing in the water. It's a dedicated 2-weekend job for 2 people in a well lit work area

I did do one dockside, but the dock has power, was in the front yard, there's a sandy bottom below a couple feet of water, and I was in absolutely no hurry. Point being, it's possible to do a total re-deck in the water, but I'd rather be doing it somewhere warm and dry.....