Warning: 4 hours fighting a twisted seam that should have taken 20 minutes

Had a job last week in a 12x15 bedroom where the carpet was slightly off-grain. Every seam I tried to tape kept curling and pulling apart. I finally stopped and used a heat gun at low setting to relax the backing, and it laid flat in 30 seconds. Killed almost a whole afternoon on something the boss said was a rookie move. Anybody else run into off-grain rolls that just fight you the whole way?

3 comments

3 Comments

tessa_rivera14d ago

My buddy Mike had a roll of berber once that was so off-grain it looked like a snake in the bag. He spent two days wrestling with it, trying every trick he knew. Finally he just cut the whole thing into 4 foot pieces and seamed them together like a puzzle. Looked fine in the end, but he said afterwards he'd rather re-tile a shower pan than deal with that again. Your heat gun trick is gold though, I'm stealing that for next time.

the_avery14d ago

Rather re-tile a shower pan" got me rolling lmao, I've got a similar war story with a shag that was rolled so tight it had memory worse than my ex. Heat gun is definitely getting added to my bag next time I'm dealing with one of those nightmares.

joseph_martinez3514d ago

Mike had the right idea honestly. I had a similar situation with a loop pile that was twisted worse than a pretzel (not the snack kind). Wound up doing the same puzzle piece thing but with a straight edge and a prayer. The heat gun trick is a lifesaver though - I've used it on seaming tape that just wouldn't cooperate.