Warning: that power stretcher adjustment trick backfired on me

I saw a guy on YouTube say you can set your power stretcher head to a 45 degree angle for tighter corners. Tried it on a bedroom install in Toledo last week and it left a weird ripple along the baseboard. Had to pull the whole section and re-do it. Anybody else had trouble with that angled head trick?

2 comments

2 Comments

wright.drew24d ago

Tried that same 45 degree trick after watching some carpet guy on Instagram swear by it. Total disaster on a living room install in Cleveland. Left this weird wavy line right where the pad met the tack strip. Had to rip out 12 feet and re-stretch it flat. The angle just puts too much uneven tension on the carpet face. That trick might work on commercial glue-down jobs but for residential stretch-in it's a guaranteed headache.

wade_hall24d ago

Did you check if the pad was glued down or free laid underneath? I had a similar ripple show up once and it turned out the pad was bunching up under the stretch, not the carpet itself.