Carpet Installation: How To Installing your own carpet isn't the impossible task you might imagine. It does involve specialized tools (that you can rent) and using some muscles you probably didn't know you had. But the hardest part may be selecting the type of carpet that best suits your needs. The type of weave and material you pick depends on your desired price range and your desired strength and durability. You should also consider how often you redecorate since you don't need a high-priced, durable carpet if you change your carpet every few years. Carpet Materials: Wool carpet is durable and crush resistant (walking on it does not leave footprints), easy to clean and good for high-traffic areas, but it tends to hold static and is usually very high in price. Nylon is also very durable and easier to clean than wool and does not hold static. But it is high priced and may fade if exposed to a lot of sunlight. Polyester is not as crush resistant as wool and fades when exposed to a lot of sunlight. It is extremely durable against abrasions and costs less than wool and nylon carpets. Acrylic carpet does not fade, is fairly crush resistant and is easy to clean, does not hold static and is low priced. But it is not as strong against abrasion as the other types. Polypropylene Olefin carpet is the least expensive, easy to clean and fairly strong against abrasion. It may or may not be crush resistant depending on the type of weave, also known as pile. Floor Preparation: When installing carpet, floor preparation is usually minimal. If you are replacing carpet, pry up the old carpet from the tackless strip. The padding and tackless strips can be reused if they are still in good shape. Make sure the floor is dry and free of debris. Sweep or vacuum the area to ensure a clean, flat surface for installation. If you are installing carpet directly over concrete, check for moisture problems before installation and get them fixed. Excess moisture can ruin your new carpet. When you are nailing into concrete, make sure you know where the heat ducts under the floor are because you may accidentally puncture them. To find the ducts, wet the floor along the wall and turn the heat up. The pipes are located in the area that dries first. Mark this area with chalk and avoid it when nailing the tackless strip to the floor. Make sure you can afford your project. We recommend a Home Improvement Loan. Tools and Materials You Need: Saw or shears Tackless strip (sized for your job) Masonry nails Hammer Carpet padding Heavy scissors Utility knife Staple gun (or cement if covering a concrete floor) Duct tape Carpet of choice (sized for your job) Chalk line Row cutter Seaming tape Seaming iron (rented from carpet manufacturer) Rolling pin Knee kicker (rented from carpet manufacturer) Power stretcher (rented from carpet manufacturer) Trimmer Stair tool Gripper edge Step 1: Install Tackless Strips: Use a saw or shears to cut a length of tackless strip to fit each wall. Nail the strips around the perimeter of the room, leave a space between the tackless strip and the wall that equals 2/3 of the thickness of the carpet. Using at least 2 masonry nails for each tackless strip, nail them to the floor. Make sure the tackless strips join together at the corners and the pointed pins in each strip are facing the wall. If you are installing carpet over tile flooring, remove the tiles where you are nailing the tackless strips. Tip: If you are installing carpet over concrete, install a special gripper edge manufactured for concrete and fasten with masonry nails before installing the carpet. Caution: To protect your hands, always wear heavy work gloves when handling tackless strips. Step 2: Install Carpet Padding: Cut the padding in strips long enough to fit the length of the room. Make sure the padding is long enough to cover the tackless strips on all the walls. Lay out your padding waffle side facing up, and staple it along its edge every 6 inches. If you are installing directly over concrete, cement the padding to the floor. The padding should not overlap; it should be butted up against each other to form a clean seam. Use a utility knife to trim the excess padding that is covering the tackless strips, and cover each seam with duct tape. Step 3: Cut and Lay the Carpet: Measure your room's length and width and cut the carpet 4-6 inches longer than the room's dimensions. Use a utility knife to cut the carpet from the backside. After measuring the carpet, flip the excess over a cutting board and use a straight edge to guide cutting. Overlap each piece of carpet at the edges to allow for trimming. Make sure when cutting and laying the carpet that its pile is facing the same direction. Step 4: Cut the Carpet Seam: Overlap the edges of the carpet leaving about 2 inches of excess carpet at the wall. Snap a chalk line on the back of the overlapped carpet edges and trim a straight edge to ensure a straight seam. Overlap the straight edges and use a row cutter to cut the bottom piece. The edge of the top piece should be your guide in cutting the seam to fit. Step 5: Cut a length of seaming tape and center it under the seam. Make sure the adhesive side of the tape is facing up and the carpet seams butt up against each other. Use a seaming iron to melt the adhesive by slowly pulling the iron down the tape. Once the adhesive is melted, immediately press the carpet edges together over the tape. Roll over the seam with a rolling pin. Step 6: Use the Knee Kicker to Attach the Carpet: Hook the carpet to the tackless strip starting in one of the corners. Dig the teeth of the knee kicker into the carpet about 1 inch from the wall. Swiftly kick the cushioned end of the knee kicker with your knee to hook the carpet to the tackless strip. Step 7. Use the Power Stretcher to Attach the Carpet: Once one corner is hooked, use the power stretcher to stretch the carpet to the opposite wall. Put the base of the power stretcher at the wall that was just hooked with the knee kicker, and use a piece of scrap carpet or a padded 2 x 4 to pad the wall. Dig the teeth of the power stretcher into the carpet about 6 inches from the opposite wall. Press down the lever and lock it into place, stretching the carpet and attaching it to the tackless strips. Next, use the power stretcher to hook the other corner opposite of the first corner hooked, following the same procedure. Follow the numbered sequence in figure 8, kicking and stretching the carpet until the edge of the carpet is attached to the tackless strip around the entire perimeter of the room. The small arrows represent the knee kicker and the large arrows represent the power stretcher in the diagram. Step 8. Trim the Excess Carpet: Adjust the wall trimmer to the carpet thickness and trim the excess carpet at each wall. With the blade on an angle and the base of the trimmer flat on the floor, slice the carpet down the wall. When you get to the end of the wall, trim the last few inches with a sharp utility knife. Step 9. Smoothing Out the Rough Edges: Use a stair tool to push the edges of the carpet between the wall and the tackless strips. Step 10. Install a Gripper Edge: Finally, trim the carpet at the doorway, centering the end of the carpet under the shut door. Install a gripper edge or nail in a metal strip to hold the carpet in place.
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More.... useless addendum IICRC guidlines indicate the following regarding wool carpet: Advantages: Resilient Holds dye color well Hides soil Naturally flame resistant Disadvantages: As noted abve, expensive Susceptible to chemical damage, wool MUST be cleaned with products in a pH range of 4.5 - 8.5. Chlorine bleach will dissolve wool fibers in minutes. Stains Easily Dries slowly Water damaged/soaked carpet has potential to shrink
Something seems just a little out of place here Its hard to imagine the old west without images of the classic cowboy riding his horse off into the sunset. Yet, if things had gone differently, those old western movies would have had John Wayne riding into town on his camel. When the Lone Ranger was blurting out, Hi-Yo Silver, away!, he would have been referring to his two-humped friend. And Roy Rogers would have had a dromedary named Trigger. To see what I am talking about, we must set our timepieces back to the first part of the nineteenth century. At this time, the United States was undergoing a great expansion in size and most of the land that it obtained in the southwest was desert. It was not a place for man, horses, or mules. Lack of water meant lack of life. Yet, the United States government was determined to explore this territory. In 1836, Major George H. Crosman felt that he had the perfect solution. He proposed that the U.S. government purchase a bunch of camels. After all, what other animal was better suited for desert conditions? He was certain that this was the answer to their problem. Yet, like all good ideas, it fell on deaf ears. That was until Jefferson Davis, who was a Mississippi senator at the time, was told about the camel scheme. He regularly suggested the importation of camels to anyone that would listen, but, again, the idea went nowhere. The tide began to change in 1852 when Davis was appointed as Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. Now he was in the position to recommend the purchase of the camels. It took him another three years, but eventually Davis got the idea approved. On March 3, 1855, the Congress appropriated $30,000 to be expended under the direction of the War Department in the purchase and importation of camels and dromedaries to be employed for military purposes. The U.S. Camel Corps was now officially in existence. Now it was time to get some camels. There were none to be found in the United States, so Major Henry C. Wayne and Lieutenant David D. Porter were sent aboard the Navy ship Supply to the eastern Mediterranean to purchase some. Their knowledge of camels was minimal at best, so their first purchases were poor ones. Once they learned the ropes, they were able to obtain thirty-three of the animals at an average cost of $250 each. The camels were boarded on the ship for their three-month voyage across the sea. From the moment the camels got on the ship, it was obvious that this plan was headed for failure. Knowing little about the care of camels, Wayne and Porter hired six Arabs and one Turk to make the journey to the United States. Just being born in one of these countries, however, does not make you a camel expert. Like the Americans sent to get the camels, these guys basically knew nothing. The Turkish man, who was hired as the veterinarian, had one treatment for everything that ailed these animals: he tickled their noses with a chameleon tail. Clearly, he was well studied in veterinary medicine! The ship finally arrived in Indianola, Texas on May 14, 1856. One camel had died on the journey but two were born along the way, so the team was ahead by one. Within minutes of unloading, however, there were problems. First, just the sight of camel made the horses and mules go berserk. Second, they smelled really, really bad and no one wanted to deal with them. After some fattening up, the camel team was placed at Camp Verde (near San Antonio, Texas) under the command of Lieutenant Edward F. Beale. We can be pretty certain that Beale, who had enlisted in the U.S. Navy at the age of fourteen, never dreamed he would be asked to lead a pack of dirty, smelly Army camels across the desert. Beales mission was quite clear. He was to survey a route from Fort Defiance in New Mexico to eastern California along a trail that would someday become the western portion of that road where you could get your kicks on Route 66. Clearly, this involved the crossing of a lot of desert terrain. This sounds like a job for Underdog! No, wait a second. He would die of thirst also. No, this sounds like a job for the super camels! And off they went. At first, the camels struggled to keep up with the horse and mule teams. They may not have needed as much water, but boy, were the camels slow! However, as in that classic race of the tortoise and the hare, you should always bet on the slow guy. After a few days, the camels adapted to their new environment and left the others in the dust. When Beale completed his official report and submitted it to Congress, it was clear that the camel experiment was a great success. By this time, John B. Floyd had replaced Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War and made the recommendation to Congress to import one thousand more camels. It looked as if the western spotlight on the horse was about to fade into history. Whoa! Not so fast! Hold your horses! Making a recommendation is one thing. Actually getting the money to do it was another. You see, the United States had a big, big problem at the time. The country was on the verge of a Civil War and the last thing Congress needed to deal with was a herd of camels. Just in case you didnt know, there was a Civil War. The two sides fought and fought and the United States eventually agreed to be purchased by AOL/Time Warner. (Well, maybe not.) During the war, Camp Verde, which was still home to the camels that did not journey with Beale to California, fell under Confederate control and played absolutely no part in the war. The camels were treated very poorly, mainly because they were misunderstood. If there is one thing that a camel demands, it is R-E-S-P-E-C-T. The camels basically treat you the way you treat them. Hit them with a stick and they will spit on you. Kick them and they will kick you back. It was not unusual for a camel to accidentally get loose and have to fare for itself in the desert. As a result, the camels got the reputation of dirty, nasty, and uncooperative animals. Few people had any use for these beasts. When the war was over, Congress no longer had any interest in the camels. The railroad was expanding west, providing a much better means of transportation. The remaining camels were all auctioned off to the highest bidder, although interest was minimal. Many of these same camels were occasionally seen roaming the vast American desert as late as the beginning of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, the hatred against them was very high and many ranchers used the camels for target practice. One of the Arabs originally hired for taking care of the camels, a man named Hadji Ali, whose name was Americanized as Hi Jolly, tried for many years to convince others how useful the animals could be. But even he had no success and was forced to let his camels go. Today a monument stands in Arizona in tribute to Hi Jolly and the U.S. Camel Corps. And so ends the grand camel experiment. Its hard to imagine how a plan that was so right could end up going so wrong. Useless? Useful? Ill leave that for you to decide.
