kcrossley2

I just got a great deal on an end roll of 12' Karastan carpeting. I was at the store and called my builder to confirm the room size before purchasing the carpet. Unfortunately, the specs the builder gave me were off by 4", which means I needed a 12' 4" width. This is relatively high end carpet with a soft fiber backing, instead of the traditional mesh.

Is it possible to use a carpet stretcher to get the additional 4 inches I need?

Thanks!

Nestor_Kelebay

You CAN stretch a 12 foot carpet 4 inches, but that's about the limit, and if the room isn't rectangular, or you need to run the carpet under a baseboard radiator or something. you'd still be up the creek. Also, the way this is supposed to work is that you order EXTRA carpet and run it up the wall several inches, and then cut the carpet to the shape of the room with a wall trimmer. You actually cut it a bit short of the wall with the wall trimmer, and then stretch it up to the wall with a power stretcher (or if it's a small room, lotsa guys will still kick it in with a knee kicker).

It's a much better idea to buy a bit more of this same carpet (a 2 foot long by 12 foot wide piece would be plenty) and hot melt tape the carpets together.

You see, carpet has a "grain" to it, kinda like wood. As it comes off the carpet mill, each tuft will be leaning permanently slightly in the direction it came off the mill. If you hot melt tape the 2 foot long strip to the edge of the carpet to make a 14 foot wide carpet, you will see two apparantly different shades of the same colour because of the difference in tuft angle.

(You see exactly the same thing when you vaccuum a cut pile carpet. The fibers are left at a different angle depending on what direction the vaccuum cleaner was moving, and the result is that you see "vaccuum cleaner wide" streaks in the shade of the carpet colour as a result. Some people like that effect, some don't.)

The way to do this is to order an 18 inch long (by 12 foot wide) piece of the same carpet. You then cut that piece into 9 equal widths of 16 inches each. You then hot melt tape those pieces end-to-end along one side of your carpet to make a 160 inch wide piece of carpet with all the tufts leaning in the same direction. (The carpet installer will know how to do this.)

(You'll have to work out whether you need to order a piece of carpet 1 foot, 1 1/2 foot or two feet long depending on the length of your room. Also, there's no magic about cutting it into 9 equal widths. You can cut 10 pieces each 14 inches wide and throw the remaining 4 inches away. If the strip you order is only 1 foot long, that will result in a 10 foot long 14 inch wide piece of carpet to tape to the side of your roll end. If the piece you ordered is 1 1/2 foot long, that piece will be 15 feet long by 14 inches wide instead.)

Floorwizard

I am glad Nestor has given you some great advice.
I am just wondering which Karastan comes with a softbac.
I have never seen one.

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Nestor_Kelebay

What kinda surprises me is that the architect (or whomever drew up the plans for this house) would specify a 12 foot 4 inch room width. Architects know that carpet most commonly comes in 12 foot widths, so you would think they would have had the room 11 1/2 feet wide or something so as to avoid problems like this.

Bigger isn't always better. In this case, an 11 1/2 foot wide room makes much more sense than a 12 1/2 foot wide room.

Floorwizard

I would rather get the extra space and have a seam personally.
I have big dressers and a huge bed.
An extra foot would go a long way.

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