New carpet is great for sprucing up a room. However, it's easy to make mistakes. Be sure you're familiar with all the tools needed for the job--particularly the seaming iron. If it's possible, practice a few seams on some scrap pieces before you tackle the real job. Also, if you have to seam two pieces of carpet together, make sure the pile runs in the same direction on both pieces.
Materials
Power stretcher
Tackless strips
Stair tool
Stapler
Hammer
Awl
Strip cutter
Carpet knife
Razor knife
Top cutter
Measuring tape
Knee kicker
Wall trimmer
Stair tool
Seam tape
Seam iron
Work gloves
Safety glasses
- Starting in a corner of the room, we nailed tackless strips to the concrete subfloor (figure A). Because we were installing the carpet over a concrete floor, we used masonry nails. Try not to hit the raised teeth on the strips when you attach them to the floor.
* Tackless strips (sometimes referred to as "tack strips") have sharp raised teeth to hold carpet in place. They eliminate the need for carpet tacks, which were used years ago.
- We nailed the strips around the perimeter of the room with the nails spaced about 12 inches on center. Be sure to leave about a 1/2" gap between the strip and the wall. The edges of the carpet will be tucked into these gaps and under the baseboards .
* Be sure to wear leather gloves and safety glasses when installing the tackless strips.
- We rolled out our carpet pad and cut our pieces to length (figure B). We made the first rough cut on the pad using a carpet knife. We trimmed the pad just short of the tack strip. You want to leave a slight gap between the pad and the strip to keep the pad from riding up on the teeth when the carpet is installed and stretched.
- Next, we butted the strips of padding against each other, making sure that the seams didn't overlap, and taped the pieces together (figure C). We continued cutting and taping the padding until the entire floor was covered. To secure the carpet pad edges to the floor, we applied carpet pad adhesive around the pad ends and then allowed the adhesive to dry.
- We carried the rolled carpet piece into the room and unrolled it (figure D ). The edges of the carpet will roll up about an inch at the base of the walls.
- We rolled out one section and tucked the carpet into the corners. Then we used a carpet stretcher and spreader to hook the carpet over the tackless strips (figure E).
- With one small section stretched, we used a wall trimmer to cut away any excess carpet along the wall (figure F). We then tucked the carpet under the baseboards with a stair tool (figure G).
- We began working on the opposite side of the room to stretch the carpet. To use the stretcher, we set the head about 6 inches from the wall and adjusted the extension tubes so that the foot rested against the opposite wall (figure H). We pressed down on the lever to stretch the carpet toward the front wall. We used the carpet stretcher to tuck the carpet over the tackless strips. We then repeated the same cutting and tucking to lay the carpet.
- To make our seams, we cut a piece of hot-melt seaming tape to length (figure I) and centered it under the seam with the adhesive facing up.
- Using a carpet iron, we heated the tape by slowly passing the iron over it (figure J). As the adhesive melted we pinched the carpet pieces together.
- Finally, we pushed a seam roller (figure K) along the seam to blend the nap of the two pieces together.
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WINDOWS MEDIA VIDEO