Are you in the process of replacing the carpet on your used pontoon boat? If so here are a few helpful tips for doing the work yourself. One customer recently asked me, he was thinking of replacing his pontoon carpet with indoor/outdoor carpet tiles and whether or not could they be used on boats?

I informed him I would not recommend using the carpet tiles as they will come up on the corners after time from the sun and water. I always recommend using one solid piece of indoor -outdoor carpet or marine grade carpeting.

Remove all the pontoon boat furniture including steering console and floor trim until you are down to the plywood. Now you can remove any of the carpet that maybe stuck to the plywood as well as any of the old adhesive that was left behind. You may need to do little sanding to you get down to a fresh clean surface. Now is a good time to inspect any plywood that may need repaired or replaced.

Next step is to roll out the new carpet on the pontoon boat and allow some time to allow carpet to flatten. Once the new carpet is ready to install, to back half the carpet and glue the new carpet and the floor of boat. I recommend using marine grade contact cement spray. It allows you would a couple of minutes to maneuver the carpet into place working out any lumps in the carpet. I prefer to glue at a temperature higher than 50 degrees and make sure you use a good new hook knife or carpet knife.

Now proceed into doing the same steps with the remaining section of pontoon boat floor and carpet. You may want to have another person help you with the installation as a second set of hands is not a bad thing. Now is a good time to go for lunch as you need to allow the carpet to settle a bit before next step. 

Next step is to cut off any overhanging sections of the carpet and install floor trim. Now you can reinstall your pontoon boat furniture and steering console. Installing pontoon boat carpeting is really not big project to do yourself, especially if you enlist some help.