How to do Carpet Repair

To make a carpet restretching repair you’ll need to rent a knee kicker. You’ll also need a sharp utility knife and preferably an extra pair of hands.

Summarized below are the steps required in making a restretching carpet repair.

1. Remove baseboard trim along the walls of the room.
2. Unfasten the carpet from the tack strips on the side you want to pull tight.
3. Use the knee kicker to pull and stretch the carpet in the desired direction to remove the wrinkles.
4. Next use the knee kicker to stretch the carpet up and over the tack strips and tack the carpet down.
5. Cut away excess carpet near the wall edge and re-install the baseboard trim.

Cutting and plugging carpet repair is required when you need to remove a stained or damaged piece of the carpet. To do this type of carpet repair you’ll need to have some excess matching carpet material. As the phrase implies this type of carpet repair involves cutting out the damaged carpet section and plugging it with a new piece of matching carpet material. For this type of carpet repair you’ll need a sharp utility knife, an empty can to be used as a template, scissors, marker, painter’s tape and carpet tape.

Summarized below are the steps necessary for making this type of carpet repair.

• Place the empty can over the damaged carpet and use your utility knife to cut around the can. Hold the can firmly down when doing this to ensure a clean cut. I suggest wearing work gloves when making this cut as it can be dangerous.
• Use the empty can again to cut out a carpet plug from the swatch of matching carpet material. Again wear work gloves when making this cut.

Mark an arrow on a piece of painter’s tape and place it on the carpet plug in the direction of the carpet’s nap. Similarly mark an arrow on another piece of painter’s tape and place it on the carpet near the cut, again in the direction of the carpet nap. Now place carpet tape onto the backside of the carpet plug. Remove the backing off of the back of the carpet tape, and align the arrows of the plug and on the carpet floor with each other. With the arrows properly aligned place the carpet plug into the cut out hole area and apply firm pressure.

• After installing the new carpet plug you’ll notice that it’s nap is higher up than the surrounding carpet. This is because the plug nap has not been flattened down over months and years of use. To achieve a better carpet nap match place a heavy object on top of the carpet plug. A stack of books works well for this situation. Leave the heavy object on top of the carpet plug area for several days.
• After removing the heavy object from the carpet plug area inspect it for any loose fiber ends and trim them with scissors.