I'm thinking of tearing out the existing carpet and installing new carpet on my older Triton. The material isn't too expensive but it seems like a ton of work. I'm curious to hear about how many hours it takes for those of you that have done it. I would add a padded front deck and carpet trim. Thanks...chris

It is a lot of work. Get yourself a TON of razor blades. When I did mine if I made more than 3 cuts with the razor blade the blade would tend to pull the fibers instead of cutting them. NOT good. Make sure you have the carpet going the right direction on your deck lids before gluing them down.

Make sure you have good ventilation. The glue fumes are strong

takes patience

The question was...How many hours will it take, approximately?
I'm curious to know as well.

The wife and my son removed the old carpet and glued down new carpet on our ski boat in one day while I was at work. Looks good and has held up for two years now.

Well I did not time how long I worked on mine but It took a couple weekends of work and I had a 17.5ft boat that was fairly straight forward but I also did the bunk boards on the trailer at the same time. The hardest part was cutting the carpet for the floor in front of the seats and around the console, because the wall on the console was attached to the floor. I had several deck lids to do and they are very time consuming if you do them right. Wrapping the carpet around the lid can be difficult and it is even harder on the corners. How much time it takes depends on many factors. If your boat has a simple lay out it shouldn't take much time. How big is your boat? How many deck lids do you have? Are you mechanically inclined or not so much? Do you have anyone to help or are you doing all of it by yourself? How organized are you? Do you work without distractions? Is the boat in an enclosed area or are you going to do the job outside? If outside, the weather will be a big factor for the next several months.
Now can you see why I can't possibly tell you how much time it will take you to do your boat...I have no idea what your boat is like and how efficient you are working on it. If you feel confident that you can do the job, then go for it.

I would not do it again.

Yes sir! Lots of time, and LABOR... At my age and health, I couldn't even begin to start bending, twisting, etc. to attempt that job. Gone Fishing on here does a good job but, there are several others.
He was close to me and did a good job on the carpet, even adding a padded front deck
JMO
God Bless
Lee

When I was working on boats regular I would price myself out of the carpet business on purpose.

If your budget permits rockwall marine has a dang good carpet guy if he's not booked up I'd go there

I did mine. If I did it all at once it would have taken me around 16 hours. But, what I did was remove all the lids and do 2 an evening. After work. Then when they were done, I stripped the rear deck and recovered it. Then the next day, I did the front deck. I still haven't finished the console area because I am building a console and adding a deck extension. I estimate 16 hours. I had about 45 minutes start to finish per lid. And around 3 hours on each deck. I am not going to recover inside the storage areas. Just regluing those areas. The padding is easy. Also, I needed some "bondo". When I pulled my carpet, the plastic filler used to "flush in" my seat pedestals was cracked and coming up in chunks. So I mixed up some and repaired those areas. I also ran wiring under the carpet for some heated seat eliments. Don't waste your time there. It doesn't work so well. I will put something into the consoles though. Just haven't figured out what will work well yet.

Things needed.

As said...lots of good razors. A pair of upholstery shears (scissors), a five gallon container of WeldWood landau top adhesive. A cheap paint gun. (Husky brand for me), and I also used my Snap-On D/A with 36 grit paper to clean the aluminum lids and I used 80 grit to clean off the old glue from the fiberglass. (Be careful and NOT get into the glass too much) I also recommend a quart of mineral spirits to clean up tools and over spray that gets on the gel coat. It will not damage the gel or the vinyl seats. It is too mild of a chemical. It's just strong enough, with a little elbow grease to remove fresh glue over spray.

If you have specific questions...just ask.

Great tips.....thank you.

I've done them several times.
Keep the pieces you pull out, they can serve as a template for the new pieces.
I always used a box cutter by Stanley, several blades and a long metal straight edge. The one I used was a bracket piece for shelving.
Buy a gallon of Contact Cement and some cheap brushes. Clean the boat well after removing the old carpet.
The most time intensive part are the lids.
It would usually take me about eight to ten hours to do the entire boat but that has to be spread out over two days to allow the lids to dry.
Keep a fan on if you do this in a garage, the fumes are pretty strong.

It's not that hard. Go slow, take your time and don't hurry.
It will make an old boat look like new. It's worth it.

if you use a compressor and glue gun it will cut the lid covering time WAY down. Sand them clean, spray the back of carpet with an even thin layer of glue and spray the lid with a layer. Wait ten minutes or so for both parts to tack up a little (soft, but doesn't stick to your fingers is perfect). Stick the two parts together laying very careful attention to making sure you have around 4" of overlap on every side. And stick it. Lol. The corners are cut at an angle and wrap around the corners and over the edges. The angled cut corners should NOT be on the hinge side of a lid. The wrapped around edge should be on the sides. This is where the stress is gonna be when opening and closing the lids. The wrap around parts will not peel off if done correctly.

This method of sanding/glueing made it possible to do a lid, with factory results, in under an hour each.

I think looking at the time it takes is the wrong way to look at it. Steez did it how I believe it should be done, take your time and do a bit at a time. Doing it slowly will yield you the best results and as close to a factory look. There are plenty of tips and tricks (YouTube, BBC, Google) out there to make the job easier and get the best results possible.

I re carpeted my old boat several years ago and the price wasn't that bad but it is a ton of work, especially getting the old glue off...

When I bought my new Skeeter I asked what they charged to re carpet a 20 ft bass boat and they said around $700. If I would have known that I would have had them re carpet my old boat. The place was Fun n sun boats.

Give them a call..