Patching Carpet

 

JOHN: She’s a Labrador and if you don’t watch her she’ll lick and lick at the carpet for some reason and then she’ll start to chew and she chewed about – oh, I’d say about a quarter or half-dollar sized hole …

TOM: Ah, boy.

JOHN: … in the carpet right by the couch.

LESLIE: Can you move the couch? (chuckling) No, I’m kidding.

TOM: Yeah, really.

JOHN: (chuckling) Right.

TOM: Well, first of all, do you have any extra carpet?

JOHN: Yes, we’ve got some out in the garage.

TOM: Well, you could patch it. You may see the seam. So you’re going to have to decide what’s going to be less obvious; the little hole in the carpet where maybe, as Leslie said, you could strategically move some furniture, or a patch.

LESLIE: If you did want to patch it what you would do is you would get a utility knife – a good, sharp one – and you’d cut a square shape around that hole. And you want to make sure that you don’t cut all the way through to the pad but you do want to make like one nice, clean cut on each side so that you do get out a nice, smooth area. And then that piece that you cut out, you want to use that as your template to cut a piece out of the new carpeting. And you need to pay attention to the pile.

JOHN: Oh, yeah.

LESLIE: As wood has a grain, carpet also has a grain; if you will. So you want to make sure that you’re not putting it in the opposite direction where all of a sudden you’re going to see a different sheen or a different color tonation.

JOHN: Right.

TOM: Because then it’s super obvious.

LESLIE: Yeah, then it’ll like stare right out at you. And what you want to do is you want to get some carpet adhesive and you want to put that on the backside of the patch and on the pad – it’s almost like a contact cement – and then you want to take carpet glue and you want to – or the same adhesive, whatever you find – and put it on the edges of that pile and then shove it in there and really press it down into that hole and then fluff up the pile with your fingers and really let it dry and then vacuum your patch area.

TOM: Yeah, there’s another way to do it, too; with carpet tape that is heat activated. But for that you need some special tools and it sort of goes underneath the open sides of the hole and then it glues down to the carpet and holds the whole thing in place.

JOHN: Sounds good.

TOM: Alright, John, and listen; keep an eye on that dog, will you? Get a pen. (Leslie chuckles)

JOHN: Yeah, she’s a menace.

TOM: (chuckling) Alright, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.