Guide for Fitting Carpets

1. Before you start, you will need:

• To read through the guide before you begin
• Knee kicker/Carpet stretcher      (fitting carpet)
• Sharp Knife      (fitting carpet)
• Carpet bolster      (fitting carpet)
• Hammer      (fitting gripper)
• Snips      (fitting gripper)
• Hammer tacker      (securing underlay to wood floors)
• Spray adhesive      (securing underlay to concrete floors)

 

Fitting Room Carpet.

Lets get started.

1. Gripper

Carpet grippers are used to hold the carpet in place around the edges of your room, when using an underlay.

1. Prepare the subfloor by cleaning the area and looking for wires and pipes.
2. Position the carpet grippers, ensuring the angled side is around 8mm from the skirting board. 
3. Hammer the gripper rods in place. Use your snips to cut the gripper down, to fit around smaller dimensions like alcoves and doorframes.
4. Make sure the entire perimeter has gripper installed, except for your doorway openings.

 

2. Underlay

If your carpet has a felt backing and you intend to fit it without an underlay then you can skip this step.

1. Roll out the underlay from one side of the room to the other.
2. Cut it to fit just inside the gripper rods, using a sharp knife or heavy scissors.
3. Repeat this process until the whole room is covered, butting the rows up tightly to each other without overlapping. Tape the joints, recommended.
4. For any awkward shapes or recesses, simply cut a piece of underlay to size.
5. Secure the underlay to the floor using a hammer tacker for wood subfloor or spray adhesive for concrete subfloor.

 

3. Door Trims

Before you start, in addition you will need a hacksaw and the chosen method of fixing i.e. nails, screws or glue.

1. Choose the method of fixing your door trim. If fixing into floorboards or wood, a ring shank nail or screw is required. No more than 19mm (3/4 inch) long as not potentially pierce through the floorboard and damage pipework. If fixing into concrete, then concrete oboe nails are required, again no longer than 19mm (3/4 inch). Always check for pipes with a pipe detector. If the subfloor is tile, stone or concrete, that is to hard to nail, then use gripfill. You could drill and plug but always check for pipes before doing this. 
2. Choose the correct trim to be used. Double-edge bars have grips on both sides and are used to connect carpet-to-carpet. Single-edged bars have grips on just one side and are typically used to join carpet to vinyl or lino. Z-section bars are used to safely transition from carpet to tiles, wood or laminate.
3. Positioning and cutting. All door trims are typically positioned under the door where the hinges are, so as when the door is closed you cannot see the trim. Take a tap measure and measure the length between the doorway at this position. Now mark the measurement on the door trim and then cut carefully with a hacksaw, so as not to scrape along the door trim.
4. Sniping. Most doorways will have architrave. You will need to snip the door trim at this point, for it to fit in place. 
   
5. Fixing. Once the door trim is ready to fix in place. Fix with your chosen method.

 

4. Opening up and positioning the carpet

Position your carpet roll diagonally in your room. You may require assistance with this in the initial stages of positioning your carpet. Carpet can be quite heavy and difficult to manoeuvre.

1. Unroll the carpet.
2. Fold the sides in, so it is ready to position square.
3. Move the carpet around 45 degrees and loosely lay it in place where you want it to sit to cover the room.
4. Check your carpet will fit into each wall, alcove or doorway. Adjust the carpet if necessary.
5. Aim for an extra 5-10cm extra around the edges before you cut anything.
6. When your happy it will fit everywhere, with  you can move onto fitting.

 

5. Fitting

Make sure you have a sharp blade! To ensure a clean cut.

Start by trimming off any excess carpet to leave 5 - 10cm and then, in each corner, trim the carpet upwards, following a vertical cut and fold it into place.

* Use the same process as the corners when fitting around door frames, pipes and any other difficult areas.

 

This example shows a typical square room and the order (from 1 - 8) in which to fit your carpet and the direction in which to stretch your carpet.

 

The 2 walls labelled 'fixing walls' are walls you fix your carpet and stretch away from, to the opposite facing wall.

 

Choosing starting point 1 is done by selecting the opposite corner to your doorway. You want to be stretching your carpet into your doorways, not away from.

Lets begin:

    1. Start fitting your carpet in corner 1. Using a carpet bolster, firmly crease the carpet against the skirting to mark a fold line.

Using your knife with a sharp blade, hold the carpet flat to the floor and cut along the fold line.

You'll need to cut slightly higher than the carpet surface (about 5mm). Be careful not to mark the skirting-board when you do this. Rub the carpet along the gripper with one side of your bolster to hook it in to the gripper. Tuck the excess carpet down with the bolster. It will tuck around the angled edge of the gripper and leave a neat, level finish.

    2. Using a carpet stretcher. Move to corner 2 and position the carpet stretcher, teeth downwards, about 25mm from the skirting. Then push firmly against the padded end with your knee to hook the carpet onto the gripper on either side of the corner. Repeat fitting from step 1.

    3. Move to corner 3 and repeat.

    4. Move to section 4 now and repeat the fitting from step 1. No need for the stretcher here, as it is a fixing wall and you will be stretching away from here.

    5. Move to section 5 and repeat step 4.

    6. Sections 6 and 7 require the stretcher again and you will repeat the action of stretching onto the grippers as described in step 2, before then again, fitting the carpet as described in step 1.

    7. Move to section 8, which will be fitting into your door threshold or doorbar. To fit into a doorbar, cut your carpet about 5mm over the bar and then tuck it into the doorbar with your Stanley blade. Lastly, stretch the carpet into the doorbar and that's it, your all done. Just to tidy up.

    i. You may find when your finished, depending on the carpet, that there are fold lines or small 'bubbles'. No need to worry, these will settle and disappear in short time.

 

Fitting carpet without an underlay

If you have bought a felt backed carpet, these can be fitted, with or without an underlay. If you choose to fit it straight to your subfloor, the process for fitting is virtually identical to the steps above, except for 2 things:

1. You'll need to use spray adhesive to secure the carpet instead of gripper.

2. You'll need to cut slightly higher than the carpet surface, this time no more than 2mm, instead of 5mm.

 

Fitting Carpet on Stairs.

Lets get started.

1. Gripper. Straight steps.

1. Prepare the subfloor by cleaning the area and looking for wires and pipes.
2. Measure the width of your stairs. Then subtract 10mm (i.e 5mm gap each side)
3. Cut the gripper. You will need 2 lengths per step. 
4. Position a gripper on a step with the angled edge facing into the step, and leave a gap between the gripper and the riser 3/4 the thickness of the carpet. Hammer the gripper rod into place.
5. Fix another carpet gripper to the riser, with the angled edge facing down and at the same distance as the tread gripper. Hammer this into place.
6. Repeat for the remaining straight steps.

 

Gripper. Winders.

1. The gap for fixing the gripper in the crutch of a winder step is the same 3/4 of the thickness of your carpet as a straight step.
2. On a winder step, also fix gripper to the outside of the step. The gap you want is roughly 8mm, like when fitting gripper in a room.

 

 

 

 

2. Underlay

1. Cut pieces of underlay to fit between the gripper strips without covering, by measuring the steps width and from gripper to gripper.
2. Use a hammer tacker to fix the underlay in position. 
3. If underlaying winders, the same process applies.

 

 

 

 

 

3. Fitting. Straight steps.

Make sure you have a sharp blade! To ensure a clean cut, and a straight edge to be able to cut a straight line. A doorbar edge will suffice.

Start by rolling out your stair carpet face down, so the backing is facing you.

Lets begin:

1. Measure your stairs width and allow approximately 4mm (i.e. 2mm each side).
2. With the aid of a straight edge, carefully cut the carpet to fit the stairs. 
3. Roll up the carpet, with the underside facing out and the carpet pile direction brushing the correct way. (Pile brushing up with the stairs and down with the stairs).
4. Starting at the first step. (Which will be meeting the landing carpet that has come over the edge of the top step and cut off in the crutch of the step). 
5. Hook on the carpet to the first step gripper and tuck in with a bolster.
6. Then pull the carpet down and over the first step and fix (with a bolster) into the gap of the tread and riser gripper of the second step. (You can use a hammer here, to hit the handle of the bolster for extra tucking force). Repeat for the remaining steps.
7. If more than one piece of carpet is needed for your stairs, which is usual. Repeat the steps, for the remaining stairs. Cutting off the carpet in the crutch each time.

 

 

Fitting Winders.

Winders, are fitted individually and you’ll be starting off with a rectangular piece of carpet.

Lets begin:

1. Align your piece of carpet, so that the pile is in the right direction and the carpet is running square along the nose of the step. 
2. At the wide side of the winder, make a small relief cut down to just above the front edge of the step to take the tension off and at the corners cut vertical lines, to aid the carpet settling flat on the tread.
3. Fit the tread area first.
4. Like with straight stairs. Pull the carpet down over the front of the step and fix (with a bolster) into the gap of the tread and riser gripper of the second . (You can use a hammer here, to hit the handle of the bolster for extra tucking force).
5. Trim the edges of the carpet, leaving 10-20mm excess and fold over that  excess to leave a neat finish on the sides.
6. Repeat for the remaining winders. After cutting off the carpet in the crutch of the step each time.

 

 

Fitting a Bullnose.

We will be describing the cap and band method. A bullnose is fitted individually and you’ll be starting off with a rectangular piece of carpet. 

Lets begin

1. Align your piece of carpet, so that the pile is in the right direction and the carpet is running square along the nose of the step. 
   
2. Fit the tread area first and into the crutch of the step.
3. Like with straight stairs. Pull the carpet down over the front of the step, except this time your going to cut off the carpet, making sure there is enough to fix under the nose of the step. (The Cap) Keep the carpet you have cut off. (This is the Band).
4. Fix the cap with a staple gun or nails, under the nose of the step and cut off any excess after. (You can use a hammer here to flatten down any lumps in the carpet as it shapes around the nose of the step). 
5. The band can be fixed with either tacks or spray adhesive. You can attempt the band in two ways. First, you can fix the band roughly into position on the riser and then trim the carpet to neatly finish or. Second, you can take the risers height and width measurements and cut the carpet to this dimension before fixing it on the riser.
   

Cap & Band method on stairs and bullnose

 

Finally, if you need any more advice, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. We will be happy to help. There are also some excellent videos on YouTube, showing all aspects of measuring and fitting carpet and vinyl flooring.