It’s true that a lot of bad trade work was done in Calgary during the boom. But the truth is a lot of good work was done too. In fact, during the boom builders had no problems paying flooring installers for extra services in order to have a better installation, things like cleaning fees or paying for extra labor to sand down or plani-patch (applying a light weight concrete) the joints in the sub-floor.

The step of making sure the joints in the sub-floor were flush, was an important step in carpet installation. If one side of a joint in the sub-floor is up even an 1/8th of an inch or if there is a gap in the joints, this could eventually lead to the carpet stretching when there is traffic on it.

I have unfortunately seen it a lot. Here is an example I found:

I was curious to know why there was a ripple in the carpet at this particular point. I disengaged the carpet and rolled it back. It was obvious what was wrong under the carpet. The gap in the sub-floor matched up perfectly to the ripple in the the carpet.

The good news is the carpet can be fixed!