Often a careful carpet repair can extend the life of a damaged carpet and save you a great deal of money on replacement.

Carpet stretching is one of the most common methods of repair. After several years, carpet can lose its tension.  Rippling may be noticed only in certain areas or across the entire carpet.  It may be more pronounced on days of higher humidity.  Rippling often occurs following hot water extraction (‘steam cleaning’) of carpets although it usually settles back down once the carpet is dry.  The solution is to re-stretch the carpet using such tools as a knee kicker and a power stretcher so that the carpet lies uniformly flat once more.

Carpet burns occur when a high heat source -  steam iron, cigarette, match, candle wax, etc. – burns or singes the carpet. A steam iron burn on carpet will best be repaired with a carpet patch.  This is called a corrective insert, whereby the damaged area is removed and replaced with a spare piece of the same carpet.  It’s always wise to have extra pieces of your carpet reserved for such a situation.  However, if you don’t have any, simply exchange a piece the same size as the burned piece from an inconspicuous area.  It might be from a closet or from underneath a book case, perhaps.

Cigarette burn repair is done by using a small piece of reserve carpet after you have carefully cut the burned fibres out of the carpet with a sharp pair of scissors. Use a waterproof glue to hold the piece securely bearing in mind that you will be vacuuming and possibly steam cleaning your carpet.

Candle wax is usually a simple repair.  First you must scrape as much of it away as possible using the side of a spoon or the dull side of a knife.  Next, place a brown paper bag on top of the wax.  Set your iron to medium heat and place it on the paper briefly to melt the wax and transfer it to the paper.  Continue until all the wax has been removed.

At times, carpet dyeing is necessary to repair color loss areas that occur when a strong chemical such as laundry bleach contacts the carpet fibre. If the damaged area isn’t too large, it’s entirely possible to use carpet dye products such as carpet dye sticks and carpet dye pens to carefully add color back into the area. Otherwise, you would be best to consult with a professional carpet dyeing service for best results.

Richard Watters