The fitting sequence, step by step
- Old flooring and gripper lifted and removed
- Subfloor checked and swept, any loose boards screwed down
- New gripper fixed around the room perimeter
- Underlay rolled out and taped at the joins
- Carpet laid roughly in position and trimmed to shape
- Power stretcher used wall to wall to remove all slack
- Edges tucked and trimmed, door bars fitted last
Where a rushed job falls apart
Skipping the power stretcher and relying on a knee kicker alone is the single biggest cause of carpets rippling within a year, especially on stairs and long runs. Gripper nailed straight onto a damp or dusty subfloor also fails to hold, so the carpet creeps at the edges the first time furniture is dragged across it.
Your part on the day
We ask that the room is cleared of small breakables and that pets are kept elsewhere while tools and blades are out. Beds, sofas and wardrobes we can generally move ourselves, but wardrobes packed full of clothes should be emptied first so we're not lifting dead weight on a staircase.
Fitting in Fife's older tenement flats
A lot of our carpet work is in the traditional tenement stock around Dunfermline town centre and Kirkcaldy's High Street area, where common stairs are narrow and turning a roll of carpet up a stairwell needs care and sometimes cutting it into shorter lengths on the landing rather than trying to force a full roll round a tight bend.
Trimming and finishing
- Excess carpet cut back from skirtings
- Carpet tucked into the gripper gap with a bolster
- Doors checked for clearance and re-hung if needed
- Door bars or thresholds fitted at room transitions