Ragged edge on Carpet install; can this be fixed and if so, how?

[Wallace63]

Hi, everyone..first time post. We had a new carpet installed next to an old carpet, and the edge of the new (black/blue carpet in the pic below) looks "ragged" for lack of a better way to explain it. Carpet installers insist it's because the fibers of the new carpet are longer than the old. That makes sense to a degree, but I still would have expected the end result to look a lot better than it does, and can't think of a time I've ever seen a seam between two carpets look this bad.



What do you all think? Is this a 'good', 'bad' or somewhat in-between quality install? I admittedly know next to nothing about installing carpet, but it almost looks like either the fibers or the carpet itself were not cut well/properly.

Carpet installers sent out their supposedly best repair guy who looked at it for all of a second or two and said "nothing I can do about that" other than put a transition strip over it. He only had metal (not attractive/cheap looking) or vinyl to choose from. We would up picking a black vinyl T-mold to go over it, but the room is 14' wide and the vinyl only comes in max 12' sections. So we'll have a seam. Asked installer if we'd see it and he said "yep, you'll definitely see it" (the seam between two vinyl pieces).

Would appreciate any opinions on whether this was done well or not so well, or what we could possibly do to fix it.

Thanks -

 

[Incognito]

Do NOT have a transition strip installed between two carpet. That's not a good idea and that has nothing to do with 12' lengths. I dont see a faulty carpet install from that single photo you offer. I could guess that the dark color has some texture whereas the light color is a cut pile-----flat as opposed to raised and lowered pile. I don't think what you have looks bad at all and I've encountered similar "issues" when matching up different "levels" or textured. If I'm correct in my guess the taller portions of the dark are laying down "flat" over the dark giving a kind of wiggly line look. Where the line wiggles toward the dark would be the shorter nap (fibers) which are tight to the light. He stright edge cut the seams and butt them. What makes me see a texture is that it's not random but quite serpentine in appearance------consistent with how a textured carpet would be manufactured with highs and lows. We cant reall see this from a direct overhead image. I'm speculating.

If I were not happy with that look I'd tuck a straight edge snug to the dark carpet and attempt to shear off the overlapping, taller textured yarns along the straight edge. I'm just not sure how clean of an edge this would create so I'd discourage the attempt in the first place. I'm just imagining the solution in an instance where a customer was really unhappy and I couldn't talk them out of it. Honestly though, I think it's fine as is.

 

[Wallace63]

Thanks. Why would you recommend against a transition strip? We talked with the vendor this AM and they may be able to provide a single 14' wide wood transition instead of the two-piece, cut vinyl.

I'm also curious why you think the install is fine as is. I'm admittedly just a homeowner vs carpet pro, but in all my (many - I'm an old guy) years have never seen a seam in a home or business look like this. What I have seen - 100% of the time - are seams that are straight and crisp, in a clean line. Never wobbly/jagged like this.

 

[Incognito]

Possibly a solid wood threshold would be acceptable to my taste. Certainly not a plastic or metal. It offends my sensibilties to put vinyl (cheap plastic from China) between carpet. Metal would be better than plastic, but again I will insist it's ugly and foolish. If you spent the money on a nice hardwood threshold, while I would not choose that it's the least offensive to me of those choices.

When a taller nap carpet is seamed to a shorter napped material the overlapping material is going to create that irregular line as the higher fibers lean down in an irregular way over the seam line. I've seen and done this many dozens of times with commercial loop pile and cut pile carpets seamed in patterns and borders. It's not fixable with very short, dense nap but then again it's much less visable. We make the seams from down on our knees so we see things from a different perspective. From 5 1/2-6 feet up and then farther away stuff like that blends in and you also are distracted from the image.

Why don't you take more photos from close/far/angles/lighting variations. Maybe it's worse that I see from your photo. To me what I see is an inherent issue you get seaming a thicker, dark carpet to a short nap, white one. What really matters is for you to be happy with the finished product even if that's a transition. I am only offering my perpspective and an opinion. I've learned to like many things around my house that I had initial objections to similar to this situation. But i still see those "flaws" every time I look. It's hard to unsee something.

 

[Floorist]

Possibly a solid wood threshold would be acceptable to my taste. Certainly not a plastic or metal. It offends my sensibilties to put vinyl (cheap plastic from China) between carpet. Metal would be better than plastic, but again I will insist it's ugly and foolish. If you spent the money on a nice hardwood threshold, while I would not choose that it's the least offensive to me of those choices.

When a taller nap carpet is seamed to a shorter napped material the overlapping material is going to create that irregular line as the higher fibers lean down in an irregular way over the seam line. I've seen and done this many dozens of times with commercial loop pile and cut pile carpets seamed in patterns and borders. It's not fixable with very short, dense nap but then again it's much less visable. We make the seams from down on our knees so we see things from a different perspective. From 5 1/2-6 feet up and then farther away stuff like that blends in and you also are distracted from the image.

Why don't you take more photos from close/far/angles/lighting variations. Maybe it's worse that I see from your photo. To me what I see is an inherent issue you get seaming a thicker, dark carpet to a short nap, white one. What really matters is for you to be happy with the finished product even if that's a transition. I am only offering my perpspective and an opinion. I've learned to like many things around my house that I had initial objections to similar to this situation. But i still see those "flaws" every time I look. It's hard to unsee something.

I agree 100%.

 

[Wallace63]

Thanks..we agree - metal or vinyl would look cheap, and for that reason we're not big on either. But the edge as it currently is looks absolutely horrific / worse than a transition strip to us, whether that's "normal" or not. It would drive us absolutely insane for it to stay that way, so we need to do 'something' to make it look better.

The carpet company is trying to see if they can get a 14' wide wood transition piece to bridge the 2 carpets at the seam. We should know more tomorrow if they can make that work or not..one complication is that this is in the basement, which is concrete underneath - so we have to worry about moisture. We have some other wood on the floor in that room, and put down roofing felt under it as a protective barrier. (I also used pressure treated wood, so the roofing felt was probably overkill). We'd potentially do the same for whatever wood transition they come up with..

 

[DarisMulkin]

I agree with the installer as to why it lloks ragged. If you could get them to open the seam and bevel the higher carpet with a beveler made for beveling, then it wouldn't be so noticable. Othan that I'd see if they could sissor cut it. Sales person should have mentioned it at the time of the sale. But it is buyers remorse at times.

 

[Incognito]

https://www.tools4flooring.com/bond-ew-311-carpet-beveler.html

 

[MSLI]

Sorry that happened to you especially after so many years of good carpet installation service, however It’s unusual in our business to have a 14’ connection between two different styles of carpet in the same room. Now ! when it does happen the key to success is always preparedness, just like an Eagle Scout

The sales staff or measuring service dropped the ball on proper planning on this one. Like Darris said , that carpet needs beveling. A simple micro bevel ( using the NC Beveler ) would have cleaned up the edge on the thicker black carpet before seaming. However ! In defense, this is a custom tool used mainly by carpet fabrication workrooms.

At this stage of the game, with the seam already made, I would probably bring my portable carpet carving machine, similar to Incognito’s photo ( a glorified hair trimmer for carpets ) and shear off the ugly folds.

Good luck ! And post a few pictures of the completed repair.

 

[Incognito]

Way back when they sent me out to trim ragged hairs off a zillion square yards carpet tile with cut and loop piles in an office tower with the beveler. As far as I can recall that was the only time I used it and I totally forgot about it til Daris mentioned it. I was wondering why you would want to open the seam to trim and then reconstruct. I wouldn't try that as my skill level with conventional carpet-----iron and seam tape----are modest. In fact I was thinking to butt my straight edge to the taller carpet and slice with the knife and trim with scizzors. NO guarantees!

My memories of that trim job were that the customer was unhappy with the frayed edges and I was trimming seams WHILE the furniture was being delivered and the cubicles were being assembled. That cut off all the low angle lighting so the frayed yarns were no longer visible. The boss made me go out there and pretend for a few more days but you couldn't see a before/after difference. I guess it all just walked in?

 

[DarisMulkin]

At this stage of the game, with the seam already made, I would probably bring my portable carpet carving machine, similar to Incognito’s photo ( a glorified hair trimmer for carpets ) and shear off the ugly folds.

It can be done without taking the seam apart and probably easier to find someone to do it. Rug fabricators should have the equipment.

 

[highup]

An individual doorways, I beveled it by hand and it can even be done afterwards but a 14-footer would make your carpal tunnel get carpal tunnel.

 

[MSLI]

That cut off all the low angle lighting so the frayed yarns were no longer visible.

Lighting can be our friend or worse enemy, good point.

 

[Incognito]

Lighting can be our friend or worse enemy, good point.

With carpet tile, when it was a newish product (early 80's-90s) salesmen push hard on the INVISIBLE seam angle. Then some corporate bigshot who's spending tens of millions on the job shows up (before the systems furniture) and with that big, empty space with windows all round you see EVERY seam quite clearly. Some seams were really bad as they experimented with plush, cut piles and tight loops including stripe patterns and textures. Some of that was really stupid and just wasn't appropriate for tiles. But if the corner office guy at IBM, General Dynamics, Aetna, HIG, Union Carbide.............wants THICK carpet well then Interface, Milliken and the others were ready to make it and sell it.

For the most part it winds up ALL about the lighting, traffic walking in the seams and the biggest part is attention focus. Once you're inside walking around you stop obsessing over trivia on a construction job/commercial sites. The best part of that is it's no one going to actually LIVE there so an installer gets 99% of the sale with that first impression. It's one out of a couple hundred "end users" who suffer such and intense OCD that you're going to have to return to the site to haggle over............usually stuff that's unfixable with tools/skill. So it becomes another aspect of the sales pitch. I learned quite a few ways to............sell it.

 

[Floorist]

With carpet tile, when it was a newish product (early 80's-90s) salesmen push hard on the INVISIBLE seam angle. Then some corporate bigshot who's spending tens of millions on the job shows up (before the systems furniture) and with that big, empty space with windows all round you see EVERY seam quite clearly. Some seams were really bad as they experimented with plush, cut piles and tight loops including stripe patterns and textures. Some of that was really stupid and just wasn't appropriate for tiles. But if the corner office guy at IBM, General Dynamics, Aetna, HIG, Union Carbide.............wants THICK carpet well then Interface, Milliken and the others were ready to make it and sell it.

For the most part it winds up ALL about the lighting, traffic walking in the seams and the biggest part is attention focus. Once you're inside walking around you stop obsessing over trivia on a construction job/commercial sites. The best part of that is it's no one going to actually LIVE there so an installer gets 99% of the sale with that first impression. It's one out of a couple hundred "end users" who suffer such and intense OCD that you're going to have to return to the site to haggle over............usually stuff that's unfixable with tools/skill. So it becomes another aspect of the sales pitch. I learned quite a few ways to............sell it.

Some of the people who design carpet have never installed. Did you know that berber was intended to be glue direct only? Then some "brilliant" decorator decided it would look good over pad in a house. I installed all the berber around here for years, because I was the only one who would match the pattern. One customer that I picked up and probably did 50 houses for, had never seen berber pattern-matched until I installed some for him. He said that his previous installer told him that it could not be done. He was a house-flipper and owned an apt. complex. Good customer. Never questioned anything.

 

[DarisMulkin]

when I started the bulk of the jobs were loop pile. Berber to me was just a loop pile, no big deal.

 

[Floorist]

when I started the bulk of the jobs were loop pile. Berber to me was just a loop pile, no big deal.

I knew a guy in Raytown Missouri who owned his own store. He refused to sell berber over pad. When I worked in KC for Carpet Corner, the biggest chain there, we did stretch-in berber every day. The other guys seemed to always screw it up.

 

[MSLI]

I beveled the edge of a 3/4” plush ( using duck bill napping shears) at the bottom stair riser. Notice the before and after shot, it’s not perfect, but is a cleaner look.

 

[MSLI]

But the edge as it currently is looks absolutely horrific / worse than a transition strip to us, whether that's "normal" or not. It would drive us absolutely insane for it to stay that way, so we need to do 'something' to make it look better.

What was done to correct the issue ? Thanks

 

[kwfloors]

when I started the bulk of the jobs were loop pile. Berber to me was just a loop pile, no big deal.

When I started it was push and sculptured shag.