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Prepare Room for Carpet Installation
Installing carpet is a task you can do yourself, as long as you have the patience and the know-how. Of course, you will require special tools to complete the job. Some of these tools you may need to rent from a carpet manufacturer such as the seaming iron, knee kicker and power stretcher. However, the vast majority of tools you require you may already have (IE. hammer, staple gun, cordless saw). On the other hand, if you don’t have them, you can purchase many discount tools for a great price at local stores and online tool sites.
The following is a list of the tools and materials you will need in order to install carpet: Carpet padding, chalk line, duct tape, gripper edge, hammer, knee kicker, masonry nails, power stretcher, row cutter, rolling pin, saw, seaming iron, seaming tape, stair tool, staple gun, strong scissors, tackless strip, trimmer, utility knife.
Aside from rented and discount tools, you will also require the carpet you want to install. There are many types of carpet material (IE. acrylic, wool, nylon, polyester, etc.), and each has different degrees of durability. Make sure you choose the one that is best suited to handle the amount of traffic in the room you are carpeting. You also need to consider how long you plan on keeping the carpet down.
Before you install carpet, you need to prepare the floor. First, remove all furniture and items from the room. If the original carpet is being replaced, pull up the old carpet. If the current tackless strips and padding still looks good, reuse them.
Once the carpet is up, ensure that the floor is dry and free of dust and dirt by vacuuming or sweeping it. If the floor you are installing carpet on happens to be concrete, check to make sure there are no moisture problems. If there are, you’ll need to fix them first before installing carpet.
In addition, you need to understand that working on concrete verses tile or other floor surfaces is different. Therefore, before hammering nails in concrete you need to know where the heat ducts are located under the floor. To find the heat ducts, wet the floor and jack up the heat. Once the heat ducts make themselves known (they’ll be the first area of the floor to dry), mark the area with chalk and avoid it.
Furthermore, when it comes to installing the carpet padding on concrete, you won’t be able to use a staple gun to secure it to the floor; you’ll need to use cement. Thus, make sure you know exactly what method of action you should be taking based on the room floor you are covering.
Once you have the floor prepared, and all your tools, you are now ready to install the carpet. Just remember, that you should wear heavy gloves and safety goggles when cutting with a regular or cordless saw or when hammering. You can often purchase these items at discount tool stores as well.
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