Seam sealer added later
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Tags: carpet seam sealer, carpet seams, gaps in seams, how to make a carpet seam, sealing seams Comments (1)
Again this week I saw two situations of installers just not getting it when it comes to seam/edge sealing.
First one was from an installer who was repairing a seam that had a depression along it that was likely caused by too hot of a seaming iron. The guys who had tried to fix the seam the first time had dismantled the seam, redid the seam and then left a tractor with the customer and asked her to run the tractor over the seam all weekend. Needless to say the customer was not impressed. The last installer went in there and said he could not match up the pattern. It was a high /low loop and the pattern was just less than an inch long. The installer said he could not powerstretch the carpet a half inch to help line up the patterns. I found this quite unbelieveable, especially when there were no elongated holes in the secondary backing that always exist when the carpet is adequately stretched. The same installer told me the seam he constructed was excellent and that he sealed the seams from the bottom with a glue gun!
Second one is from a delamination claim on a commercial install. There was more sealer on the concrete than on the seam. The old Standard said you could butter one cut edge and then butt the other edge into it. The new Standard states that you must seal both cut edges and then add a third bead of sealer to bind the two cut edges together. When I mentioned this to the retailer he was shocked that the new standard says that and that no manufacturer had told them of the new Standard For Carpet Installation.
I guess he has a point, who else would tell the retailers and installers that there is a new standard but the manufacturers? However is it the manufacturers responsibility to tell everyone of the new Standard? Of course it isn’t! I guess this is the tip of the iceberg for us inspectors over the next couple of years.
Tags: carpet seam sealer, carpet seams, gaps in seams, how to make a carpet seam, sealing seams
Hi there,
I read your article on re-seaming a berber carpet I am assuming. There are different situations regarding re-seaming and if you are tring to line up a pattern you do not power stretch to a seam. You have lift the carpet completely from the perimeter and then line up your seam once it has been trimmed successflly according to the pattern match and most berbers have a pattern match even the most popular ones.
If the pattern match is off you have to go to a great extent try and correct this since it is a problem with the manufacturing and the so called tolerances allowed in favour of course the manufacturer since they create the rules.
You also have be careful with misalignment which causes a wavey patterned look at the walls that are visble, I’ve seen unhappy customers there also.
After you have re-seamed your carpet then you can power stretch the carpet to complete the process. As for the depression it’s pretty obvious to a professional what has happened.
The next part is that the seam was not done correctly in the first place and it is very obvious to me why the seam did not hold and it did not have anything to do with seam sealer being left behind on the concrete.
The installer that did that work was careless to say the least.
I don’t agree with the new standard, it has to make sense and the new standard does not make any sense. I pride myself on a superior quality service and in terms of the support system for installers out there, it’s no wonder the industry is lacking.
Also delamination in which you mention happens quite frequently on jobs and not just on seams where zippering is quite a problem. I feel that the quality of the material does not match the quality of the traffic and so the manufacturers rep is not correctly specifying the right product for the area in most cases and then there is the case to be made about the quality of the adhesives and the application of them.
All in all it’s not the installers fault but the fault of the industry as a whole.
Hopefully things will get better teaching the skills and the proper procedures anmd that starts at the top.
For more info you contact me at http://www.TheRugRepairman.com