That seam under a sliding door took me 6 hours to get right

I had a job last week at a house in Oak Park where the homeowner wanted a single piece of carpet going under a sliding glass door. No seam allowed, he said. So I tried to do my usual method of cutting it long and tucking it under, but the door track had this weird metal lip that just wouldn't let the carpet lay flat. I spent the first 2 hours fighting with it, then another hour just staring at the gap. Finally I pulled the whole piece back, trimmed the backing at a 45 degree angle right where the track sits, and used a stair tool to force it down into the channel. Took 3 more hours of adjusting little bits at a time before it sat perfectly flush. Has anyone else dealt with those sliding door tracks that have a raised lip on the bottom?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_keith27d ago

Man, that sounds brutal. I've run into those raised lip tracks before and they're the worst, always fighting you every inch of the way. Glad you finally got it sitting flush though, that's a huge win.

wesley80127d ago

Three times I've had to file down tracks like that on my garage door, and every single time I wished the manufacturer had just given us a standard rail instead of that raised lip nonsense. @the_keith did you find the lip was only on one side or both sides of the track? I had a buddy who sanded down one side and still had binding on the other, ended up having to replace the whole track set. That moment when it finally slides flush though, man, that feeling is almost worth the headache.