How do I permanently fix the carpet on this stair?

March 1, 2009 6:43 PM

CarpetFilter: How do I fix this?

We had our basement & stairs recarpted when we moved in. The rest of the job is done perfectly, but this one particular stair keeps coming up. We had the installer back out to fix it once, and it came up again.

As you can see, he put padding down, but I think he may have shorted this one particular stair so the staples weren't really secured to anything. There is linoleum tile underneath the carpet.

What would be the best method of securing this once and for good?

posted by explosivo2k2 to home & garden (7 comments total)

Maybe get a second option from another flooring company.

I can only think of two ways, but neither seem very good. There's the tack-strip, which is normally used on the perimeter of rooms, but squirreled away behind the molding and baseboard. Not really sure how well it'll work right there on a stair. The other option may be an adhesive, but...yecch. It'd be a hack, but what about stapling it down to the stair and covering the gap with a bit of stained quarter-round molding?

Since it's short, I'd worry that traffic is going to pull it away no matter what.
posted by jquinby at 7:29 PM on March 1

I should mention that the carpet can actually be pulled all the way over the padding. The photo just shows that it's not secured at all right now. I was thinking some kind of adhesive, as I really don't want to pay another company to fix this one stair...
posted by explosivo2k2 at 7:33 PM on March 1

I'd be afraid that strong adhesives (I'm thinking like ridiculously strong stuff like Gorilla Glue) would seep up through the carpet and make a mess. I hadn't know before googling, but there are carpet adhesives as well. Still, I bet you could call another company and just run the scenario by them.
posted by jquinby at 7:42 PM on March 1

A tack strip will work fine.
posted by 6550 at 7:42 PM on March 1

Do you have a warranty/guarantee from the installer? You might be able to call them up and have them re-do the whole stair.
posted by JuiceBoxHero at 8:28 PM on March 1

Seems like they should have used a continuous length of carpet to begin with. The original installer should repair this by doing it over again.

If not, I'd agree with the tack strip route.
posted by orme at 5:30 AM on March 2

Seems like they should have used a continuous length of carpet to begin with. The original installer should repair this by doing it over again.

I agree. As you have seen, there is a good reason for doing this - stairs get a lot of traffic and loose edges can be dangerous. I would ask them to re-carpet the stairs using all one piece.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 11:55 AM on March 2