How to Stretch Carpet
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If your wall-to-wall carpet begins to bunch or loosen, you can fix it in an afternoon. Move some furniture, rent a few key tools, and follow these steps to be back in business in no time.
Carpet feels great underfoot as long as it is properly cleaned, cared for, and maintained while it is in the home. Its padded surface tends to be more comfortable to stand and walk on than tile or hardwood. Carpeting can also help to insulate the floor, reducing the transfer of heat and noise between living spaces.
When carpet is installed, however, it needs to be stretched to fit the room. You can either hire a professional carpet installer to do the job or, or if you’re an experienced DIYer with the right tools, take the project on yourself.
Do-it-yourselfers can also restretch an existing carpet themselves and, after a few years of wear and tear on their carpets, may reach a point that they’ll need to do so. When carpet ages, it may start to buckle, wrinkle, ripple, or otherwise loosen and lift. The resulting bumps and wrinkles are unattractive and uncomfortable to walk on. If the deformations in the carpet are not corrected, the wrinkles and ripples can crease and cause lasting damage.
Use this informative guide to learn about the tools that you’ll need for this project, and how to stretch carpet with a carpet stretcher.
Signs That Your Carpet Needs Stretching
Before calling around to local flooring stores asking how much it costs to stretch a carpet (or how much it costs to rent the tools to do it yourself), determine if the carpet needs stretching. While a new carpet will need to be stretched to fit the room, an existing carpet requires stretching if the carpet has ripples, bubbles, bumps, wrinkles, or signs of buckling.
There are few reasons why a carpet may develop bumps or wrinkles, including high humidity, low-quality carpet and padding, or poor installation. It may also wrinkle and crease if it gets wet.
While carpet restretching cannot fix serious creases in the rug, it can usually help smooth them out. Generally speaking, the longer there are ripples, wrinkles, and bumps in the carpet, the greater the risk of permanently damaging it. If you do not have the skills or time to tackle this job, you can hire a professional for about $60 per hour or $0.30 per square foot.
RELATED: How to Install Carpet
Carpet Stretching Tools
One of the reasons many homeowners and inexperienced DIYers call a carpet installation professional for a carpet stretching or carpet restretching job is that they do not have the right tools. Carpet stretching involves the use of two specialized tools: a knee kicker and a power stretcher.
Knee Kicker: A knee kicker is a tool designed for small-scale carpet stretching jobs, but can also be used in tandem with a power stretcher to remove wrinkles and bumps in tight corners or spaces a power stretcher may have difficulty accessing. As the name implies, a knee kicker is used by hooking the face of the tool to the carpet, then the DIYer uses their knee to shift the position of the carpet, stretching it over the area.
Power Stretcher: A power stretcher looks a bit like a mop, but it has sharp teeth that pierce the carpet pile and grab onto the carpet backing. The base of the tool should be positioned on the opposite side of any bumps, dents, or wrinkles in the carpet. When the DIYer presses the handle, the power stretcher extends, pushing the two ends apart and stretching the carpet.
Tools & Materials
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