Carpat@Home

Why Carpet Stretching is necessary:

Carpet stretching is, generally, done in two different situations: During the initial installation and for a carpet repair. The initial stretch, during installation, ensures that the carpet is taught, secure, and even across the entire floor covering. Taught carpet will stay in place and stay smooth and flat to the floor where it belongs.

What causes carpets to ripple or buckle:

• Poor installation: The carpet may have been improperly installed. In most cases of a bad installation the installer didn't use a power stretcher properly or at all.
• Excessive wear due to traffic: Sometimes a carpet will need to be re-stretched because of wheelchairs, walkers, tricycles, etc. Even when installed to perfection it can become loose from excessive wear.
• Sliding heavy furniture: Carpet is made of layers of fabric. When heavy furniture slides across the carpet it's likely that it will cause rippling.
• Latex: if the latex holding the backing together deteriorates it's called delamination, the carpet essentially loses its grip on itself, resulting in buckling and loss of fiber.
• Improper padding for carpet type. Certain pile types require specific padding types; if these are paired improperly, the right amount of grip and support may not be present, resulting in carpet buckles. Make sure you consult a trained professional or manufacturer's guide when purchasing carpet so you get the right padding to accompany it.

If your Carpet is Rippling:

(to stretch or not to stretch)

If you have carpet that looks more like the ocean than a flat carpet, you may have a problem. As soon as it begins to loosen up and become rippled, it wears faster. The bigger the ripples, the faster the ripples grow. This is because carpet is designed to lay flat and not move at all. When you walk on carpet ripples it causes the carpet to move up and down, further loosening it.

If your carpet is loose it's time to take action. In most cases, carpet stretching can fix the ripples and buckles, and there's no need to waste money replacing the carpet because of how it lays.

Carpet stretching is a common type of carpet repair that essentially involves pulling the carpet up from around one or more edges of the room, re-stretching it to proper tightness, cutting the carpet to the proper length, tacking back down into place and finally tucking it in along the edge.

Like any type of carpet repair, stretching carpet is more involved than it seems to be. Stretching carpet isn't just a matter of smoothing out ripples and re-securing, or pulling at the edges by hand as you would a bed sheet. Carpet stretching comes with its own tools and techniques that help you do the job right.

Essential Carpet Stretching Tools

A professional who repairs carpet for a living will have all of these tools on hand. If you decide to try and stretch carpet yourself, most or all of these tools should be available for rental or purchase at a relatively reasonable price. Even contracting out your carpet stretching is far more cost-effective than replacing the carpet, so either way, these tools, in your hands or someone else's, save you quite a bit of money.

Partial list

• Knee stretcher. A knee stretcher, also known as a kicker, is a special tool that has a grip on one end, to attach to the carpet, and a pad on the other end, for you to 'kick' with your quadriceps, (do not kick with your knee!)
• Power carpet stretcher. In the trade we usually call this too our stretcher. The stretcher is the most important tool for stretching carpet. It's specially designed to adjust to any size room and help stretch carpet much more effectively than anyone could do by hand (or by knee). A power carpet stretcher features a very long pole with a carpet grip on one end, a wall brace on the other, and a handle lever in the middle. Don't even try to stretch a carpet without one. This is the most expensive tool most of us carpet people have.
• Carpet or slotted blade knife. Involved in almost every carpet repair task you can imagine, a good carpet knife will never let you down. In the case of carpet stretching, the knife is used to trim excess carpet from the edge after it's been pulled tight.
• Staple gun. An industrial carpet staple gun isn't a regular staple gun. The staples are far narrower so that they fit between the nap. Carpet staple guns aren't always necessary for carpet stretching, but it's good to have on hand just to make sure. Because a properly stretched carpet is pretty tight, the tack strip alone may not hold it down satisfactorily, in which case the staple gun eliminates any doubt.
• Stair tool. A chisel like tool used for tucking carpet in after cutting it to the right size.
• Awl. Looks like an ice pick, used to dis-attach carpet from the tack strip
• Hammer.

Carpet Stretching: Do Your Homework First

It's important to keep a few other things in mind when your carpet repair task is to stretch carpet.

Just as carpet manufacturers specify the appropriate padding type for individual carpet types, so they also specify appropriate carpet stretching methods and amounts. What's right for some types may not be appropriate for others. For example, tufted carpet with a jute fiber backing needs to be a bit tighter than tufted fiber with a synthetic fiber backing. And some woven carpets will stretch in one direction but not the other. Consult manufacturer instructions or a carpet repair specialist so you have all the facts before you get started. After all, knowing what you're working with is just as important as knowing what you're doing.

The following is an over-simplified tutorial. If you don't already know what you're doing then you will be better off just hiring a pro. If you decide that you want to tackle stretching your own carpet I suggest that you take your time, use your head, keep your blades sharp, don't try to just kick it tight with a knee kicker and most of all be careful.

Carpet Stretching Technique

The first step is to empty the room of furniture. If you really know what you're doing then you can probably work around some furniture but if you're a novice I suggest that you do yourself a favor and empty the room.

Determine which direction the carpet needs to be pulled. In most cases the carpet only needs to be pulled one direction.

Remove any metal strips that will be in the way. Some flat metal strips need to have nails removed. Another type of metal strip is called a clamp down metal. To free the carpet from the clamp down metal, pry it open (just a little bit) with a flat chisel or a stair tool. There are too many different types of metal strips to describe here so you'll just have to figure it out.

Use an awl to lift the edge of the carpet. Go to a corner of the room and poke the awl right through the carpet about 6" from the wall. From here you will be able to pull the carpet up. If you don't have an awl you can probably use a pair of pliers.

Now it's time to unpack the carpet stretcher. Set it up so that the foot end is up against the baseboard and the head is a few inches from the wall that you are stretching towards. The power stretcher is more than strong enough to rip carpet so be careful to only stretch the carpet just enough to remove the wrinkles (and maybe just a little bit more). Over stretching carpet isn't a good idea because you will create ripples going the other direction. So again, only stretch the carpet as much as you need to in order to remover the ripples.

Use the kicker to make small adjustments.

Start at the center of the room and stretch the carpet at a slight angle towards the corners. Each time you push on the handle of the power stretcher you will pull the carpet.

Cut the carpet from the back using the slotted blade knife. You should cut it so that it is still going to belong enough to tuck into the groove between the tack strip and the wall. If you cut the carpet a little bit too short, you can probably stretch it a little bit more. If you cut it too long to tuck it in properly, then just cut some more.

Before moving on to the next area, push the carpet into the nails that stick out of the tack strip. If the carpet is hard to get it to stick to the tack strip then use the carpet staple gun.

If you use the staple gun, be sure to get the point of the gun down between the nap so that you are only stapling the backing to the tack strip and not stapling the nap down. Continue across the room stretching, cutting, tacking and tucking. Replace any metal transitions and viola!

Carpet Repair: An Introduction

Let's start with the basics: It is possible to do your own repair. If you would rather repair than spend hundreds or maybe thousands of dollars replacing then a carpet repair may be for you.

Although the average homeowner may be able to repair their carpet themselves, it's not necessarily the best choice.

A professional can help you in a small fraction of the time it would take an untrained person, all while making a hard job look easy.

If you are a homeowner and want to try to fix it yourself, I caution you that if quality really matters, then hire a pro.

For now I'll just skim the surface and describe the most common types of repairs. Later, I'll go in depth and explain in more detail about each type.

Here are some different types of carpet repair:

• Stretching

• Patching

• Transitions

• Berber

• Seam Repair

• Pet Damaged (Including Removing Pet Urine)

• Repairing Flood Damage

• Reinstalling After Remodeling

• Removing

• Repair Stairs

• Stain Removal

When an original installation is done properly, you should never need to re-stretch loose carpet. Proper installation requires a tool called a stretcher or a power stretcher. (Not a kicker, kickers aren't nearly enough.) When you see ripples, wrinkles, or bunched-up carpet, that's when you know you need to have it stretched.

Most of the time, a loose carpet can be re-stretched without needing to take apart seams. If seams do need to be taken apart, it opens up a whole other can of worms.

If there's some furniture in the room, we can often use our carpet stretcher without having to clear the room entirely. Often we can move the furniture from one side of the room to the other and stretch one side of the room at a time.

If you have a stain that you can't get out or you have damaged carpet due to a burn (not the good kind), or your bad dog or cat thinks that carpet is a food group, then a patch may be the only solution.

Patching isn't as easy as it looks. The patch needs to be exactly perfect. If there's any overlap or gap at the seam (at all), you'll be sorry.

You can use a leftover piece of carpet from the original installation or steal a piece of carpet from a closet to do your carpet patching. One thing you probably can't do is go to the carpet store and buy a piece to match.

A carpet to floor transition is anyplace where the carpet ends and the floor begins. If it's at a tile floor we call it a carpet to tile transition.

Many people install their own tile but don't know how to finish the job with the carpet to tile transition. Often professional tile installers don't know how to finish their job with a proper carpet to tile transition. There are several good ways to do a carpet to floor transition that I will explain in the carpet to tile transition article.

When people refer to a Berber carpet, they're referring to a looped carpet with rows. It's not really a Berber carpet but for our purposes here it's okay to call it Berber. For an interesting read on the history of Berber carpet click here.

Berber carpet repair is often needed due to a snag in a Berber carpet or a pull in a Berber carpet. A pull in a Berber carpet happens when one or more threads get caught, either in a vacuum or some other way. Often times it's the family pet or a child that pulls Berber carpet and creates the snag or run.

If there is just one Berber carpet row that has been pulled, it can be re-burled (glued back into place). If the Berber carpet run is more serious, say for example a dog was trapped in a room and tried to dig her way out, then a patch is in order.
If your Berber carpet is loose then it will need to be stretched. Stretching Berber carpet isn't really any different than stretching carpet of any other type.

If a carpet comes apart at the seam it can be repaired in several different ways. One way is to glue it back together, another way would be to remove the old seam tape and do the entire seam over. If the seam that came apart is on a Berber carpet then it becomes a bit more challenging.

A seam needs to withstand a lot of use, and do so for many years. This is one place where it really makes sense to use the best products available. One thing you definitely should not use is the cheap two-sided carpet tape that some web sites sell. It won't last.

Repairing carpet that's been damaged by a dog or a cat may be as simple as using a solution to remove the stain and odor. Or it may require much more, such as removing carpet and replacing it with a patch, or even going deeper by removing and replacing the carpet padding and cleaning and deodorizing the floor below the carpet, the tack strip, and even the baseboard.

When a room becomes flooded, most often we will remove the padding, dry out the carpet and then replace the padding with new carpet pad. In most cases the tack strip does not need to be replaced. A flood damaged carpet can mildew quite quickly so it's important to take quick action.

Removing, replacing, or installing new built-in furniture, walls, floor heaters, toilets, cabinets, and other fixtures are just a few reasons that a carpet installer will need install the carpet properly into the room. This will require some new tack strip and possibly some new carpet and pad to add to the area. Many times the customer will have some carpet left over from the installation. If not, we can often take carpet from the closet.

Removing carpet and carpet pad is simple but sometimes strenuous. If we are trying to save the carpet to use in a different room or to re-carpet the hallway or stairway, we will want to try to keep it in one piece. If the objective is just to remove old carpet and old carpet pad, we will make it easy on ourselves by cutting the carpet into strips approximately two feet wide.

Sometimes we charge to haul the carpet and pad away but most often we leave it in garbage bags for the customer to feed into their garbage can over a period of a few weeks (no charge).

The first stair always wears out first. One way to save a LOT of money is to use a scrap of leftover carpet from the installation or from a closet to replace just a stair or two.

If more stairs need to be re-carpeted, and if the stairway carpet matches the carpet in the hall and the rest of the house, you can save a LOT of money by replacing the stairway carpet with carpet removed from a different room. It's far less expensive to replace just one room of carpet than to re-carpet your entire house, and the stairway carpet continues to match the carpet in the hall and the rest of the house.

There are literally hundreds if not thousands of products that you can use to remove stains from your carpet. If you want some great tips on how to remove carpet stains click here.

In conclusion

The preceding information only scratches the surface of what's possible with carpet repair. In the future we do plan on writing additional articles describing in further detail every category that was listed.

We here at Creative Carpet Repair hope this helps you in your quest to learn about how to repair carpet and we are available during normal business hours to answer any question you may have. Good luck!

Stretching Carpet in Phoenix Arizona

If you have wrinkles in your carpet then it is time to stretch your carpet. This can be caused by poor installation, heavy traffic, your carpet just ageing and from your carpet getting wet. When you first notice wrinkles in your carpet you should get your carpet stretched. Delaying the carpet stretching job can lead to permanent damage. If it stays to long the carpet may not ever lay flat again. The second reason to stretch your carpet right away is because over time as people step on the carpet wrinkle it will start to crack and then rip. Lastly it can be a health issue especially for the elderly. I my self have fallen from getting my foot caught. When the carpet snags your foot it is easy to loose balance and those who are older are more susceptible to this.

A simple way to know if it’s time to stretch is go to the center of the room and grab the carpet. Try to lift it up and then let go. If the carpet does not snap right back into place then you need to have your carpet re-stretched. It is important to do because it is an eye soar but also will actually decrease the life of the carpet.

To repair this, the carpet must be re-stretched. A carpet installation company can do this by coming out and removing the carpet from the tacks on the end and then stretching the carpet out again. Often times the carpet must be cut at the edges to remove the wrinkles. This process can be just as intensive as first installing the carpet. The average cost in many areas is around .30 cents a square foot to as high as .75 cents depending on whether the company has to move any furniture. If you are willing to move it all you’re self it could cost half as much.

When you are looking for a carpet stretching company be sure and call around. The price range can very enormously. Always ask if moving furniture is included and if they guarantee their work

If you are looking at saving a few bucks you can always do this your self. It is not hard to do and the equipment can be rented at most tool shops like Home Depot.

If you have wrinkles in your carpet then it is time to stretch your carpet. A simple way to know if it’s time to stretch is go to the center of the room and grab the carpet. Try to lift it up and then let go. If the carpet does not snap right back into place then you need to have your carpet re-stretched. It is important to do not only because it is an eye soar but also will actually decrease the life of the carpet.

To repair this, the carpet must be re-stretched. A carpet installation company can do this by coming out and removing the carpet from the tacks on the end and then stretching the carpet out. Often times the carpet must be cut at the edges to remove the wrinkles. This process can be just as intensive as first installing the carpet. The average cost in many areas is around .30 cents a square foot to as high as .75 cents depending on whether the company has to move any furniture. If you are willing to move it all you’re self it could cost half as much.

For more carpet cleaning tips or to look up your local BBB carpet cleaning members please go to www.carpetcleaningheadquarters.com.

A quality carpet is an expensive venture. I am not talking about small size but the ones that we use in the living rooms. They range anywhere from 6 to 10 feet long and may be 5 to 7 feet wider. Such expensive carpet need extra attention and regular care like cleaning and vacuuming to extend their life. The length of the carpet's life is a determining factor in the value of the investment. Below are eight guidelines in obtaining a longer carpet life and thereby adding value to the carpet investment.

1. Vacuum frequently to remove tiny impurities that descend into the carpet. Frequent vacuuming reduces wear on the carpet.

2. Purchase a quality vacuum cleaner. Verify that the suction is sufficient to remove the deep grit. The dirt infiltrated into the carpet chafes and wears the carpet materials. A quality vacuum cleaner is much more cost efficient than replacing worn-out carpets.

3. The life of the carpet is extended when the pad is replaced during installation. Use the proper padding for the new carpet type. New padding reduces stretching and sagging and gives the new carpet an enhanced appearance. Evading the replacement of the pad nulls the warranty in addition to decreasing the carpet's life.

4. Use a cleaner at least once a year. High traffic areas may require more frequent cleanings. Grit, grime, stains, and oils should be removed to reduce wear on the fibers. Use only non-residue cleaners. A residue can draw dirt that creates more wear. In addition to extending the life, cleaning the carpet improves its look also.

5. Grit, grime, and oil are tracked in on shoes. Request that shoes be removed when a person enters the carpeted area. The removal of shoes will improve the looks and lifetime of the carpet.

6. Bare feet are as harmful to carpets as shoes. Human skin is covered with an oil film. Bare feet leave an oil residue on the carpets. Socks should be worn to protect the carpeted areas.

7. Use area rugs or runners in high-traffic areas. The can enhance the décor of the area as well protect the carpet. The smaller area rugs are easier to clean and less expensive to replace.

8. When a stain occurs, remove it immediately. Keep a bottle of all purpose cleaner on hand for emergencies. Once a stain is set, it is difficult or impossible to remove. Staining creates the most damaging wear, robbing the carpet of a longer life.

Following the preceding guidelines will provide longer carpet life and better looking carpets. Protect the investment of quality carpet. A little effort can extend the lifeand value of your investment.