Fitting cheap carpet

Hi how do people normally fit carpet? I fold over about an inch and staple it down. However the next carpet is one of these felt? backed carpets and I cut it to the correct size and it does not look very nice round the edge against the grain?. (it will have to do now.) I am going to fit another carpet, felt backed, to replace a foam back carpet which only lasted 8 years before the foam dried up, and that was with the correct paper underlay). So should I fold over the edges round the room or find someone who can cut the carpet better than me? This will probably cost more to fit than the carpet cost. (end of roll). What do other people do? Thanks Jackie

Reply to
Jackie
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I like to do pretty much everything myself, but there are two things which I've realised that I just can't do neatly enough to get right first time. Carpet fitting is one of them (plastering is the other).

We've recently had 3 rooms, a landing and the stairs carpetted. The carpet fitter was very speedy, and the total charge for all the rooms was £120. This is a fraction of the cost of the carpet.

Reply to
Grunff

I've only ever taken up such carpets, but they all seemed to be fitted with a line of glue around the edge of the floor holding the carpet, with the paper underlay stopping just short of this glue line. A flat edged garden spade is the easiest thing I found for removing the line of glue and the backing which remains stuck to it.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

You can buy carpet cutters that should solve this...

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cut the carpet to a little larger than it needs to be so that it more-or-less fits, but rides a few inches up the skirting. Then you run this device along the edge. It pushes the carpet into the corner between the skirting and the floor and the blade cuts a straight line at just the right distance that the carpet exactly fits.

A few things to note:

  • You will need to staple the carpet down in a few places before you start - otherwise it will move as you cut!! Probably best to staple as you go as well.
  • You need to push fairly hard down and into the wall to ensure you don't drift away from the right position.
  • If you are not careful you will leave a "score" all along the skirting as the blade comes out the other side of the carpet while you cut!
  • You can't got fully up to the corners so you will neet to carefully trim those by hand (a hooked blade seems best)
  • The blade needs to be switched to the other side of the cutter when you change direction, some cutters can do this with some sort of fancy do-hicky.

Good luck!!

Matt

Reply to
Matt Beard

Standard method: fit gripparods round room, leaving gap between rod and wall. Lay carpet out, get it thoroughly flat, trim one side and press behind griprod. Do other side. Do ends. DONT trim 2 sides, only trim the one youre about to press home. Reason is the carpet can move slightly.

Cheapo methods: fold edges and tack/staple. Or cut to size and glue down.

griprod: screwfix.

Regards, NT

Reply to
N. Thornton

Soup popped his head over the parapet,saw what was going on and said

Tried fitting carpet a couple of times when the carpet was really cheap and personally I think it doesn't look nice, with the cost of carpet and having to look at it for years seems miserly not to use professional carpet fitters. If you feel you must lay the carpet yourself ;edge the room in gripperrod (a useful tip is to lay the GR the width of a edge of a piece of GR from the wall) then insert (should require a thump (use a brick bolster hit with a hammer))carpet into the gap , do two adjacent sides stretch (using one of the knee kick stretcher things, don't know its proper name)the carpet to one of the remaining sides trim and "bash" the carpet into the gap. Then do the remaining side. (one instance where I don't D.I.Y.)

Alternatively (and a better option IMHO) is to pay £30 ~£40 to the carpet supplier and get them to fit the carpet ( remember the people they "hire" do carpet laying for a living and they will be insured).

Reply to
Soup

In message , Soup writes

I more or less second that

Seldom do I let a tradesman into my house (as I always DIM) but I had an insurance claim and the fitter came free He did a much better job than I would have done (especially the hall / stairs)

I know several people who think they have done a good job, until a couple of months later the creases appear because they didn't stretch it properly. I have laid carpets in "Square" rooms, but gaining experience on an expensive bit of carpet can be expensive.

Reply to
geoff

Method i use on small rooms (box bedrooms toilets bathrooms etc)get the pros in to do larger rooms, is after laying carpet down and stapling it down, to then take a bolster or good heavy wide scrapper and press the carpet into the angle of floor/skirting then keeping bolster in place use stanley knife to cut sliding it along the bolster between it and the piece of carpet sticking up the wall in the same way as in wallpapering using a caulking tool and knife Then run the bolster down the carpet skirting join to neaten it all up

Why when borrowing a knee kicker from a carpet fitter do they always say dont remove the fluff from the teeth? is it some mark of rank more fluff =been in the job longer or is there a real reason?

Steve

Reply to
steve

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