Carpet repair, done in a visit.

Ripples, wrinkles and buckling almost always mean the carpet has loosened from the tack strip — from humidity, furniture being dragged, or an install that was never stretched tight in the first place. It only gets worse, and a loose carpet wears faster where it folds.

We use a power stretcher (not a knee kicker alone) to pull the carpet drum-tight across the room, re-secure it on the tack strip, and trim the excess at the wall. The carpet lies flat again and stays that way.

Good signs you need a re-stretch

• Ripples or waves across a hallway or room
• A bump that moves when you push it with your foot
• Carpet pulling away from the wall or baseboard
• Buckling under or around heavy furniture

Pet damage, burns, bleach spots, snags and small stains that won’t come out can all be cut out and replaced with a matching piece of carpet. The best donor is carpet you already own — the back of a closet, under a built-in, or a leftover remnant from the original install — because it matches the color, the pile and the wear.

We cut the damaged section out, cut a donor piece to the same size with the pile running the same direction, and bond it in with seam tape so the edges lock together. On most carpets the patch is very hard to find once it’s vacuumed in.

What we patch most

• Dog or cat digging at a door or corner
• Cigarette or fireplace burns
• Bleach or drain-cleaner spots
• Snags and pulled loops
• Stains that cleaning didn’t fix

A seam that’s separating, fraying, or has become a visible line usually means the original seam tape failed or the carpet was never seamed well. Left alone, the edges wear and the gap grows.

We open the seam, clean the edges, lay fresh seam tape and heat-bond the two sides back together, then work the pile so the seam disappears. If the edges are too worn to save, we’ll say so and talk through a patch instead.

Typical seam problems

• Seams that have opened up or look like a line across the room
• Frayed or fuzzy edges along a seam
• A seam that has lifted into a ridge

Stairs take more wear than any other carpet in the house, and the nosing — the front edge of each step — goes first. Transitions at tile, hardwood and doorways loosen over time and become a trip hazard.

For stairs we can re-wrap worn nosings, re-tack loose treads, and replace individual steps when the carpet is gone. For transitions we re-secure the carpet to the tack strip and replace the metal or wood transition bar where it’s bent or missing.

What we fix on stairs and transitions

• Worn or bald stair edges
• Loose or lifting stair treads
• Carpet pulling up at a tile or hardwood edge
• Loose or missing transition strips at doorways