Methods for laying carpet, advantages and disadvantages, choice of tools, consumables, fixing the coating in different rooms. Carpet laying is a complex of works for high-quality fixing of the covering to the floor, ensuring its longevity, easy cleaning, and comfortable walking. We suggest that you familiarize yourself with the installation methods of the material, depending on the functional purpose of the room and the base of the floor.
Requirements for the room when laying carpet
The carpet will be securely fixed to the floor if a certain temperature regime is provided in the room and the humidity does not exceed sanitary standards. Do not lay the flooring in the following cases:
- If the temperature and humidity differ from sanitary standards for three days in a row: the temperature does not fall within the range from +18 to +27 degrees, and the humidity exceeds 75%.
- With sharp jumps in temperature and humidity, even if the parameters remain within tolerance. In this case, the cloth will creep.
With slow temperature fluctuations over a long time, the material can adapt to changing conditions. For example, the fastening strength will remain the same if the temperature changes from summer to winter.
If there was no carpet in the room before, remove the doors from their hinges or lift them, otherwise they cannot be opened after finishing work.
Preparing the floor surface before laying carpet
Preparation for laying carpet consists in determining the size of the material, examining and processing the rough base, purchasing special tools and carrying out other works that guarantee a high-quality floor covering.
Before laying the carpet, you must carefully prepare the floor. On the concrete surface, all the cracks are closed and the ledges are knocked down. The remnants of the old coating are removed from it. Small cracks are sealed with a crevice sealant, large ones with textured mastic. The base is treated with a deep penetration primer, otherwise dust will constantly appear from under the carpet.
If there are greasy stains, remove them with solvent. Treat the clean floor with a solution of 1 part bleach and 15 parts water, which will kill bacteria and mold. After special treatment, rinse it with clean water.
The flooring lies well on a level surface, so check the levelness of the floor with a hydrostatic level or other method. Deviation from the horizontal within the room is allowed no more than 4-5 mm. If necessary, it is leveled with means intended for the specific floor material.
Concrete has good moisture absorption properties, so lay carpet with a synthetic base, with or without olefin pile on it.
Cover the wooden floors with chipboard sheets, seal the cracks with wood putty, and remove the protruding parts. After the putty has dried, prime the surface and cycle the wood. After installing the chipboard, make sure the doors open freely. Trim the door leaf if necessary.
The hardest part is to rework old worn out or uneven parquet flooring. To level the surface, you can use a mortar intended for wooden surfaces, or lay a drywall sheet on top.
A substrate is laid on the prepared floor, which prolongs the life of the material due to the reduction of the friction of the carpet on the hard floor. In addition, the lining increases the sound insulation and thermal insulation of the coating, extending its service life. It hides the unevenness of the floor, which allows you to work without leveling the surface.
A substrate must be used when laying the panel on the parquet. This is due to the fact that when walking, the dies act on the coating in the places of their articulation. The choice of lining depends on the type of carpet and the technology of its attachment to the floor. For example, a polyurethane backing is made with a polyethylene top layer and is ideally suited to stretch carpeting.
Carpet is not laid on the warm floor. The canvas will not allow the room to heat up, and there is a danger that after the temperature rises, the carpet will creep.
Tools and materials for laying carpet
To accurately determine the size of the carpet, draw a plan of the room to scale and indicate the location of doors, niches, ledges and other elements on it. Determine the size of the canvas from the picture, increase by 10% for possible shrinkage, and when buying, add 10-15 cm on one side.
If the floor is irregular, measure the maximum length and width and purchase a blank for those measurements. Correct measurements will cover the surface in one piece. Typically, carpet is sold in rolls of 2, 4, 6 m, from which you can cut parts for standard rooms.
When buying, make sure that the manufacturers allow the carpet to be fixed to the floor in the way you have intended. The material indicates where the canvas can be laid, for example, on the stairs.
During transportation and storage, do not bend the material; creases may remain. Before laying the carpet, bring it indoors and let it sit for 3 days. The material should completely warm up, and the air between the villi should acquire the humidity of the room.
Without a special tool, it will be problematic to properly cover the floor with carpet. Buy or rent the following gadgets:
- A carpet cutting knife is a professional device that resembles a sewing machine. It looks like a corner with a handle. The knife is pulled by the handle and pressed to the floor. The cut strip comes out from the side.
- The roller carpet cutter is a tool for experienced workers. It is lighter and costs less than a professional rig, but in inept hands, a roller knife can ruin the coating.
- Spare blade knife - for cutting the carpet after gluing.
- Notched trowel - for applying glue (in the case of gluing carpet).
- Scissors - for finishing the edges.
- Tape measure - for measuring the size of a room.
- Grippers - devices for tensioning the carpet when laying the covering using the "stretching" method.
- A special roller - for straightening and rolling out the coating. Compared to painting, it is wider and harder.
- Metal ruler for cutting material.
If you plan to glue the carpet, you can determine the approximate amount of adhesive solution by the area. Average consumption of the mixture - 0.5 kg per 1 m2… The exact information can be found on the product packaging.
The joints of the carpet with other coatings are covered from above with metal profiles. Worry about their availability.
Carpet installation technology on the floor
If you want to do the carpet laying with your own hands, study the typical instructions for performing work in different rooms.
Free laying of carpet
It is used for small rooms where the floor can be covered with a single piece, for example, on balconies, dressing rooms and other deserted rooms. This is the fastest way to install carpet.
The order of work is as follows:
- A substrate is laid on the floor, fixed with a stapler. The staples are hammered in after 20 cm.
- Roll the carpet on the floor with a twist on the walls. It is recommended to place the material with the pile towards the door. It is more convenient to clean it this way.
- Use a roller to flatten the fabric from the center to the edges.
- Cut out V-shaped protrusions in the corners.
- Cut the carpet around the walls. Start trimming from the center to avoid unevenness. Leave a guaranteed gap of 5-10 mm between the canvas and the wall. They will help prevent wrinkles and bumps.
- After cutting, the cloth should lie on the floor for some time in order to straighten out and lie down. After that, check again for gaps - the carpet should not touch the walls.
- Stretch the canvas and, in this state, secure it with a plinth.
- Fix the carpet near the doors with a metal strip.
- If several parts of the covering are laid on the floor, coat the edges of the joints at a width of 15 cm with special PVA glue, and then press down with a load.
Free laying of carpet does not require careful preparation of the base, but the method of fixing to the floor is not very reliable. Furniture cannot be moved along it, the material is not recommended to be vacuum cleaned due to the danger of pulling the carpet out from under the baseboard. Wrinkles may appear on the cloth over time.
On small areas, carpet can not be fixed, it is enough to process the edges with an overlock. You will end up with a small rug that you can remove and clean.
Fixing the carpet on double-sided tape
The method does not depend on the size of the room and the unevenness of the floor, but it is recommended to use it in rooms with an area of no more than 30 m2… In large rooms, carpet on double-sided tape can wrinkle, and tape can deform when heated.
This method of fastening is reliable and the ability to quickly replace the coating. On the fixed panel, you can move furniture and even ride on rollers without fear of its coming out of the baseboard.
For work, you will need a universal double-sided tape to fix the carpet. Belts are produced in widths from 63 to 180 mm. They are able to hold the coating for 2 to 7 years. The wider the tape, the more reliable the connection.
Perform the work as follows:
- Wash the floor thoroughly.
- Remove the protective paper from one side of the tape and glue it to the floor around the perimeter of the room, and then parallel to the walls, in 50 cm increments. As a result, the tape should form a grid. Do not remove the protective layer from the top side of the adhesive tape.
- Lay the canvas on the surface, align, cut off excess parts around the perimeter of the floor, as described above.
- Fold one side of the carpet to the middle on the other half.
- Gradually peeling off the protective film from the tape in place of the raised carpet, roll the canvas across the floor.
- Repeat the procedure for the other half of the material.
- Install the skirting boards.
If you need to cover the floor with several pieces of carpet, follow the recommendations for joining them. Please note that the parts for covering the floor in the same room must be from the same roll. The cuts are laid with an overlap of 4-5 cm on top of each other, and then two canvases are cut off with a knife at once. The ends are bent, the cut parts are removed and released. The joints are ironed with a roller.
Bonding carpet to the floor
Laying carpet on glue is the most reliable way to fix the covering. The method is used in spacious rooms, industrial premises, hotels, restaurants - i.e. in places where a large load acts on the material and reliable fastening of the panel to the floor is necessary. In this way, it is convenient to lay several pieces of the covering.
The flooring can be glued in two ways - single and double. With a single one, the coating is fixed on even, well-prepared surfaces. Double gluing does not require leveling the floor, you can fix the carpet on uneven and non-horizontal floors (with the maximum permissible slope). In this case, a special bedding is first glued, and on top of it - the main coating.
There should be a mark on the carpet that it can be glued. Check out the base materials on which the brand of glue depends. The solution should be liquid, so as not to smear it on the floor, but to adjust it in the right direction. If there are areas with linoleum, you need to make sure that when the composition gets on it, there will be no chemical reaction.
The following adhesives are suitable for gluing:
- Reactive two-component adhesive … Specially designed for gluing carpet. After hardening, it remains elastic. The adhesive layer retains its strength properties at very low and high temperatures. The two-component composition can fix the material even in the vertical plane. The solution grabs within an hour, finally dries up after two days.
- Disperse adhesives … Diluted with water. The most famous of the dispersed adhesives is PVA. It adheres to various materials, is odorless, does not burn and does not emit harmful substances.
- Universal formulations … These include Forbo glue. It is made on an acrylic base, has a high adhesive capacity, and is easy to use.
The procedure for gluing the carpet is as follows:
- Spread the canvas on the floor, align and trim with a margin of 10 cm per side. If several pieces are spreading, the joints must be placed perpendicular to the window, in the direction of sunlight, they are so less noticeable. Also make sure that the fluff on different parts of the cover is in the same direction. Fold the workpiece in half.
- Apply glue in strips onto the exposed surface with a notched trowel 25-30 cm wide in such a way that a grid is formed on the floor with a pitch of 50 cm. You can also make stripes from the center to the walls. The tool for each type of glue is different, well-known manufacturers sell the device along with the solution, but more often the parameters of the spatula are indicated on the packaging of the goods.
- Do not apply too thick a layer of the mixture. An overdose can cause a solution to appear on the front side and ruin the pile. Work especially carefully with jute-based carpets. Remember that re-fastening of the material is impossible, the canvas torn off the floor is unsuitable for re-laying.
- Spread the canvas, press it well to the floor. Peel back the other half and repeat the procedure.
- Trim off excess material around the perimeter of the room using a ruler and a sharp knife. When trimming the inner corners, the canvas is first cut diagonally, you do not need to cut it to the floor.
- Nail the baseboards around the perimeter of the room.
After gluing, do not walk on the canvas until it is completely dry and do not install furniture. If the technology is followed, there will be no bubbles or wrinkles on the surface.
Fastening carpet using the "stretch" method
In a similar way, you can attach the material to wood floors or surfaces covered with linoleum. Installation of carpet is carried out using special strips - grippers, similar to thin strips with inclined points.
The carpet must be marked allowing it to be fastened in a similar way, since the grippers are designed only for certain types of products. The instructions attached to the coating also give recommendations on the need to install the underlay under the flooring.
The order of work is as follows:
- Spread the grippers along the walls at the distance given in the instructions for use of the material.
- Spread the carpet on the floor and cut along the outer edge of the batten. Using a special device, move the gripper with the carpet to the walls, while the upper edges hold the covering, and the lower does not allow it to move back.
- After stretching the covering, skirting boards are installed with a special hollow in the middle.
It is recommended to use the "stretching" method to lay the carpet on the parquet. At the same time, the dies are slightly damaged, but this method extends the life of the coating.
There are two methods of laying the panels on staircases - universal for buildings of any configuration, for even structures. In the first case, each element of the staircase is covered with a separate piece. To determine the shape and size of the workpiece, a paper template is used. The sheet is applied to the step and riser, pressed in the corners with a spatula and outlined around the perimeter. A blank is cut out of the panel according to the template, and then glued. Straight staircases are covered with a whole piece of carpet. How to lay the carpet - watch the video:
Competent carpet laying will transform the home and make it more beautiful, more comfortable, insulate and protect it from noise. We can only be proud that you were able to make such a magnificent coating yourself.
