PSA: Check your tack strip spacing BEFORE you start laying carpet

I spent a FULL Saturday ripping up a living room install because I assumed the tack strips were spaced right from the last job. Turns out the old guy who did it left a 3 inch gap near the sliding door. Carpet never looked right, kept bubbling. Had to pull up 40 feet of broadloom and redo the whole perimeter. Took me 7 hours total when it should have been a 3 hour job. Has anyone else wasted a day on bad tack strip placement?

2 comments

2 Comments

jordanl825d ago

Spent a FULL Saturday ripping up a living room install" - sounds like you had a bad day, but I gotta play devil's advocate here. If you just assumed the spacing was right without checking first, that's kind of on you. Tack strip gaps are one of those things you verify before you even unroll the carpet, especially near doors where walking traffic is heavy. I've done plenty of jobs where I purposely left bigger gaps because the room had concrete floors and I didn't want to drill a million holes. The carpet stayed flat fine because I stretched it proper and used good pad. Maybe the bubbling wasn't the spacing but how you stretched it. Just saying, not every problem is the last guy's fault.

angela_allen532d ago

Idk, I've been on both sides of this. @jordanl82 is right that you gotta check before you start, but also sometimes the old work hides stuff you don't see till it's too late. That three inch gap by the door is a classic mistake though. I've had it where the carpet looked fine for a month then started creeping because the stretch wasn't holding near the gap. The bubbling might not always be the stretch job either, sometimes the pad just settles different with a big gap. I always run a tape measure around the whole room now, even if the previous strips look good. Saves a headache later when you're trimming and feel a loose spot.