Carpet in your home serves as both a decorative element and an essential home component. Carpet provides color, texture, and depth to your home’s aesthetic appeal. It also gives your house the ‘homey’ touch one expects with a personal living space. Carpet is great for walking around barefoot, lounging around with the dog in front of the television, or for playing Twister with family and friends. Needless to say you need to take care of your carpet if you expect it to last a long time. Vacuuming once or twice a week is a good place to start. You should also consider professional steam cleaning about once or twice a year. But how can you tell if you need to stretch your carpet?
Stretch Your Carpet
Carpet is extremely durable and is built to last. Factors like heavy foot traffic, however, can begin to wear it down or loosen it from the underlying floor over the years. Consequently your carpet will require a little additional maintenance as it ages. Here are some signs to look for that indicate your carpet needs stretching.
Lumps or Wrinkles
Visible lumps (bubbles) or wrinkles may appear in the carpet after being used for a number of years. Moving furniture and other activities causes carpet to warp in the original area. Foot traffic and other factors make lumps and wrinkles appear overtime too. Stretching the carpet restores it to its original flat and even appearance.
Damage to the Carpet
Cuts and tears can occur in the base structure of your carpet, depending on the carpet thickness.
This kind of damage can cause the carpet to become loose, particularly if it’s in a large area. Take some time to inspect the carpet pile and look for obvious signs of damage from time to time. A large cut indicates you need to have the carpet stretched or repaired.
Lose Edges
Carpet is fixed to the floor with tack strips to keep it in place. One way to tell if the carpet is lose and needs stretching is to check the edges or corners. Lose edges indicate the need to stretch and reaffix the carpet to the subfloor.
Conduct a floor test to see if your carpet needs stretching. Insert an awl tool into the center of the carpet and raise it up approximately one inch from the floor. Remove the tool and let the carpet fall back into place. The carpet should snap quickly back into place. If it doesn’t, you need to stretch your carpet. 651Carpets offers professional carpet maintenance and repair. Call us today to schedule a consultation with one of our certified contractors.