Carpet Installation Tips

Beautiful carpets can be a showpiece in your home. There’s nothing that can quite match the feeling of softness on your feet that a lush clean carpet can provide. But there are a lot of choices to make when you are going to have carpet installed. Are you going to do the installation yourself or are you going to have a professional do it? Which type and colour of carpet are you going to choose? Making the decisions can be tricky. It’s good to know what you’re getting into before you start.

Types of Carpet:

• Loop Pile Carpet - Loop pile carpet is a tough carpet that is often used for high traffic areas and low income housing. Loop pile is usually the chosen carpet when it comes to offices, hallways or finished basements. The toughness and style make it easier to clean and maintain, in addition to it withstanding the constant pounding of consistent foot traffic. Loop pile carpet has two subsets. The first is level loop pile, and the second is multi level loop. Level loop pile carpet is flat. Multi level uses different loop heights to create a texture. The texture can either be fashionable or it can be textural.
• Cut Pile Carpet - Cut Pile carpet is considered the more luxurious of the two carpet options. Cut Pile carpet has three choices in it, but the main one is called Saxony style carpet. This is the usually lush and soft straight edged carpet that is very popular in master bedrooms and formal sitting rooms. The downside to this carpet is it’s so soft and absorbent that it can show off footprints and potentially show off your vacuuming pattern. Textured saxony is the second type of carpet. Textured saxony doesn’t show off vacuum lines or footprints as badly. Of course it’s not as soft either.

Carpet Installation Tips

If you choose to install your own carpet, it can be a pretty big undertaking. One of the most important things is that your carpet fits absolutely perfectly. The slightest roll in the carpet and you are going to notice it every single time you walk over the carpet. So follow these tips and you will manage to install your carpet to anyone’s satisfaction.

• Get the Right Tools - There’s a lot of handy people out there who have some great tools at their home. But if you don’t own all of the tools for installing your carpet (including a carpet spreader) then you are just wasting your time. Most of your top is going to be about using the carpet spreader and using it well. It’s not fun, but it’s necessary. Don’t try installation without it.
• Don’t Run Out - If you’re buying some type of patterned carpet, try to make sure you buy an extra 5 to 10% than you’re expecting to use. If you’re using patterned carpet, you are going to have to waste some of it to make sure that your patterns line up perfectly. Because of this, get a little extra and don’t risk messing up your designer patterns.
• Padding in All the Right Places! -Never add padding on top of your tackless strips. Never. Ever. Just don’t do it! If you do, you’re going to end up with a carpet that has a weird elevated ring along the perimeter of it. As obvious as this may seem, it’s often an issue for self installers.