New guys keep trying to seam carpet without enough tape overlap on the backing and it's already pulling apart on me 6 months later

I saw three separate jobs last quarter where they only used like 2 inches of tape on each side of the seam instead of the full 4, and the seams are already showing gaps - has anyone else noticed this getting worse with the newer installers?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamiew5322d ago

Buddy of mine had a living room seam pop three months after a guy fresh out of the program did it. He pulled the carpet back and there was maybe an inch and a half of tape holding each side, just barely overlapping. Said it looked like the guy was trying to save tape or just didn't know better, but either way it cost him a callback.

jenkins.reese21d ago

Shocked the heck out of me reading that, an inch and a half of tape? That's basically nothing! I've seen guys use a full three inches on each side and still have issues if the seam isn't straight. Honestly, the tape is the cheapest part of the whole job, so why skimp on it? Sucks that your buddy had to pay for that guy's mistake, callbacks from bad seams are a nightmare to fix because you gotta pull furniture and re-stretch everything.

vera_palmer21d ago

Just barely overlapping" is exactly what I saw on my neighbor's staircase last month. That guy fresh out of the program \@jamiew53 was talking about sounds like he trained half the new guys in this area. My neighbor's seam didn't even last three full months before it started showing light through the gap, and when I looked at it there was barely a half inch of overlap on the tape. They're definitely not teaching them the right way in those quick classes, or maybe the guys just don't care enough to do it right.