It might be surprising that I can sometimes tell who installed the carpet in your home. Carpet installers generally prep and install the same way time after time. How an installer fastened the smoothedge down, what seam tape or iron they used, where they did or didn’t use staples all provide some clues into who installed the carpet.

Now with that being said, I have fixed some of the best installer’s work I know. Installers that I would be happy to have in my home and obviously it’s likely an issue with the carpet rather than the installation.

But then sometimes I see this:

What does this picture reveal? Well it’s a wood subfloor in the home and the installer used smoothedge designed for concrete to install the carpet. This means that the smoothedge wasn’t installed properly. It wasn’t able to hold any tension when the carpet was stretched. I was able to pull this stick up with just my bare hands. It was no surprise that this carpet started rippling.

But never fear, we were able to correct the deficient installation and re-stretch and repair the carpet better than when it was new!