Knee kicker slipped on a wet pad - ruined a whole room of carpet. Should I switch to a power stretcher for every job?

Last Tuesday I was doing a bedroom in an old house. Humid as hell. The pad was damp from a leaky window they didn't tell me about. My knee kicker shot right off the pad and tore a 3 foot seam. Had to pull the whole room and reorder. Cost me $200 in extra material and a full afternoon. I get that power stretchers are slower to set up. But this keeps happening to me on damp pads. Do you guys use the power stretcher every time? Or just when you see trouble?

2 comments

2 Comments

matthew_dixon6h ago

You let a customer not tell you about a leaky window before you started stretching carpet?

drew80558m agoMost Upvoted

Window leaks are usually obvious once you pull up the carpet edge and see the water damage underneath.