Below there is useful information on such floor covering as carpet, its advantages and on how to lay carpet with your own hands.
Carpet is a convenient and relatively warm floor covering. Let’s talk about laying carpet with your own hands correctly, laying carpet tools and the proper order of works.
The advantages of carpet:
- carpet flooring are represented in a wide range, they can decorate any interior – using the right colors and visually expanding the boundaries of a small room;
- carpet has quite good sound insulation, which is especially important dealing with noisy neighbors;
- additional thermal insulation;
- modern carpeting usually provides protecting from insects;
- processed components of fire – it will not light up if a fire occurs;
- carpeting has low weight which makes it easy to transport or move it to another room;
- long service life.
Preparing the subfloor
The first thing you must do before you lay carpet is to prepare the subfloor for laying. To do this, you must perform the finishing floor screed, if the installation will take place on concrete floors. Carpet can also be laid directly on the old linoleum flooring. The main base is cleaned from dust and dirt. If the installation will be carried out on the concrete, it is necessary to use a substrate – otherwise, the coating will not serve you for a long time. Once the base is prepared, you must choose a method of laying. You should also leave the carpet in the room where it will be laying for at least a day – it will allow the material to adapt to the microclimate of the room. Moreover, it will take a perfectly smooth material condition.
There are 2 ways of laying carpet:
- sticking way;
- non-sticking way.
How to lay carpet without sticking
This is the most favored method used by most people. The free installation of carpet is applicable for such rooms where you can hide a sheet of material, because docking carpet without bonding is impossible.
Order of works
The material is cut out so that the stock is at least 2 inches on each side. After the laying, it is necessary to be spread – usually roller is used. Cut the material from the middle, smoothing the carpet, then cut off the excess. With this method the carpet is fixed only to baseboards fixed to the floor. It should be noted, that using wood or other moldings requires dyeing, it should be performed before the plinth is mounted. We can not say that the free laying is a perfect option for any case. With such installation it is just fidgeting on the ground, which may lead to its rapid abrasion, moreover, it can cause the falling of people walking on it. Being slipped out from under the baseboards the carpet may spoil the whole look of the room and will represent you as a lazy house owner.
How to lay carpet with sticking
This method is more time-consuming and requires a more thorough preparation of the basis for the installation. But this method will help extend the life of the coating and will make it safe to use.
Order of works
First the base is prepared – it should be not only smooth, but also to have good adhesion with tape. After that, on the perimeter of the subfloor it is glued with double-sided tape.
Removing the protective tape is not performed. Next, you need to stick adhesive tape on the base mesh having a mesh size of about 1,5 feet. Further, the material is cut out – the required size with the same margin as for the method without sticking. Then the protective film is dismantled (better choose the one produced with the adhesive tape) and lay the carpet, clipping the excess on the perimeter. While laying in a very large room, you may need to dock the two pieces of fabric. For this the canvas are laid overlapped and then they are cut with a cobbler knife. Then glue is applied to the floor, and canvas are glued to it, forming a nearly invisible seam.
The main advantage of carpet floor coating is a variety of designs that can express any taste and style of the owner. But carpet needs to be cleaned very regularly.