As someone that goes from home to home repairing and stretching carpets in the Vancouver area I often see homeowner’s attempts at carpet repairs. If the internet says it is easy and that anyone can do it then it must be, the internet is never wrong.
Unfortunately what the internet doesn’t tell you is what glue to use to seal the edges of the repair, or even the fact that if the edges are not sealed the risk of fraying at the edges is very high! There is no mention of how to use seaming tape and seaming irons to make sure the repair stays in place, if you find mention of this will it tell you how much it costs to purchase these tools? It doesn’t explain that all carpet has a nap, or direction of lay, that must be considered when a replacement piece of carpet is used, how to match a pattern in a carpet.
The irony is that most of the people that have attempted to do a repair themselves say to me that it is much harder than they thought it would be, often to be followed up by … DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME! Almost without exception the people that watch the carpet being stretched say I DIDN’T REALIZE HOW MUCH WORK IT TAKES TO STRETCH THE CARPET.
Do yourself a favour and leave it to a professional, you’ll be glad you did!
Chris
