PontoonStuff Forum: How To Replace Pontoon Boat Carpet

Okay, since I haven't finished the promised 'Redeck Revolution' a guide to restoring pontoon boats, I thought it was important for me to get a few of the main points written down in our forum.

To properly lay or install you new pontoon boat carpet (marine carpet) you are going to want to make sure you've either installed new CCA treated marine plywood for your deck or successfully cleaned up the existing pontoon boat decking. Before we get to much further I want to focus on re-using your existing pontoon flooring. Once you have completely removed all the pontoon seating, railing and other pontoon parts from the deck you'll get the 'opportunity' to remove the old carpet. Half of the time it is going to be very easy as the old pontoon carpet will just come right up. However if you have difficulty removing the existing marine carpet from the marine plywood you may just want to replace the deck right there, simply use a razor knife and cut the carpet at the deck joints (where the two sheets of plywood meet) and tear off the plywood and replace it with new.

I'm going to stop right there and give you a list of things to look for before you even begin to remove the carpet, if the deck is bad there is no since in spending time removing the carpet. You want to walk the deck and pay special attention to any weak spots on the deck, jump around a bit, if you fall through the floor you need to redeck it, ha! Seriously though, spend time accessing the joints where two sheets of plywood come together....are they warped? Does the side of the plywood (the plys that were covered with the deck trim (the aluminum channel that fits over the edge of the decking and runs the length of the pontoon) look delaminated or do you see signs of rotting? You might want to get under the boat and look around with a flash light as well, you'll be able to see major bad spots.

If you scope out the deck for 10 minutes and think it is in good enough shape that you might not need to replace it then begin removing the carpet by simply trying to pull it up by a corner. Cutting it into strips across the deck and pulling up the strips at a time works well too.

If you are able to remove the existing pontoon carpet you want to make sure that you remove ALL of the adhesive and bits of old rubber backing (left over from the carpet) from the pontoon deck. If you leave clumps of old glue and carpet backing on the deck you'll end up with lumps in your carpet and even worse, it will most likely react with the new non-toxic marine adhesive causing your new pontoon carpet to lose adhesion. Once you tear off the carpet take some sort of scraper and clean off the deck, if you are in the north an ice scraper works wonders (most of our southern customers don't have one lying around in the garage but you can find some sort of scraping device that will work fine)

Once the carpet it is removed you can make the final decision as to replacing the pontoon boats decking. You might find that you only need to replace a sheet or two, more than likely though you'll be better off just replacing the entire deck though. It would be a real pain if you only replace 2 sheets and in a year or so the other all go bad on you.

Okay so you've made the decision, either to redeck it or use the existing plywood. We'll discuss just the carpeting job at the moment, you'll want to make sure the plywood is brushed off and clean. Make sure you don't have dirt or any other type of 'stuff' on the deck, sweep it off good so you can apply the marine glue.

Get your carpet ready...1-2-3 Go. Take the roll of carpet and lay it out across the entire deck, unroll it so it covers the pontoon boats deck completely and then square it up at the edges. This is the tricky part, it seems to be human nature to make things as difficult as possible when you are doing manual type labor

You do not want to re-roll the carpet and apply the glue in 4' x 8' sections, this requires you to get up on the deck, crawl around and 9 times out of 10 if you lay the adhesive and carpet this way you'll get done and find the carpet is not on square but rather crooked and you'll get the 'opportunity' to frantically try to straighten it out before the glue adheres. HERE IS WHAT YOU WANT TO DO:

Roll the carpet out completely like we talked about above and fold it in half running the length of the deck. For example, if you have a 24' pontoon boat deck, get in the front of the pontoon and fold the carpet over width wise and do the same in the back, this will give you a 4' wide by 24' section of the deck which is exposed. The carpet will be folded on top of itself on the other side of the deck. (does that make sense, if not email me). By folding the carpet in half the length of the deck you'll be able to stand on the side of the pontoon boat and spread the marine adhesive while standing up, it's very easy. You'll want to use our free trowel (if you order the carpet and glue from us) and empty a gallon and a half on the 4' x 24' section of deck (a 24' deck will need 3 gallons of our glue). Spread the marine glue on in a circular pattern, just like laying tile (if you've ever put tile down). By troweling the glue on in a circular motion you'll create 'lines' of glue on the deck, these lines will then be compressed into the lines on the back of the marine carpet when you are done. Apply the glue all over the exposed section of the deck and then flip the carpet over and do the exact same thing to the other side. Once you are completed with applying glue to the entire deck in this manner lay the carpet back over the entire deck. You will now want to use some sort of heavy roller, a carpet roller, a heavy pipe or even a yard roller to compress the lines of glue into the back of the carpet. If you do not do this step the carpet and glue will not adhere properly and you'll get bubbles, lines and other spots where the carpet will come up. That's about it, you can get the carpet and glue down in approx. an hour or so. Then let the carpet and glue set up for 8-12 hours. If you can let it set a day that would be best. You don't want to start putting the railing and deck trim on until the carpet has had time to adhere.

I'll get more done a bit later. Thank you everyone for being a part of our business and our board.

Jim

PontoonBoatGuy

Tips, Tricks, and things to know
PontoonStuff Forum : Tips, Tricks, and things to know