Tried a Seam Roller on a tricky transition and learned the hard way

I was doing a carpet install last Tuesday in a condo off Elm Street and had this stubborn transition strip that kept popping up. After I smoothed it over with a standard knee kicker, the seams started lifting by the door jamb. Has anyone else had a transition fight back like that and found a trick that actually works?

3 comments

3 Comments

elizabetht561mo ago

Honestly, is a popping transition strip really that big of a deal? In my experience, a little bit of movement there is pretty common and you can usually just hit it with a rubber mallet a few times to settle it. Maybe your mileage will vary depending on the subfloor, but I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

coleman.jade1mo ago

Come on, a popping transition strip is definitely a bigger deal than you're making it out to be. If it's just a little movement from temperature changes, fine, but a strip that's actually popping up is a trip hazard and looks terrible. Hitting it with a mallet might fix it for a week, but then it'll just pop right back up when the humidity changes or somebody walks over it again. That's a bandaid fix, not a real solution, and you could end up with a cracked strip or damage to the flooring edges. A properly installed strip shouldn't need a rubber mallet every other month to stay put.

skylerg171mo ago

@elizabetht56 maybe the real trick is checking if that transition has a locking channel hidden underneath.