 | Patrick Goebel has been involved in the home improvement industry for over 10 years and is currently director of retail flooring of the Flooring & Decorating Division of Star Lumber & Supply Co., Inc. You may contact Patrick by email at pgoebel@starlumber.com or by phone at (316) 942-2221. |
Carpet, Tile & Floor Covering
2004-10-01 15:07:00
The carpet forum - continued
: We are trying to level a concrete floor, without going through the expense of pouring concrete. Can you educate me on the pros and cons of each?
ANSWER: You can buy cement based leveling agents without having to pour the whole floor. They are stated as being called a leveling agent. Re-pouring the whole floor will likely not yield any better results and will be costly. The leveling agents are fairly easy to apply and do a good job of leveling themselves out. If this is the approach you take, make sure the floor is free of debris and clean before applying and allow yourself enough time for the leveling agent to properly dry and set-up. QUESTION: What causes my wall-to-wall carpet to ripple and what can I do to prevent it? I have had the carpet stretched professionally twice in 5 years. ANSWER: Unfortunately there isn't a lot you can do to prevent this problem. Most reputable floor covering dealers and installers offer a minimum of one year warranty for re-stretching and some of the full service stores offer a lifetime re-stretch warranty. There are several factors that contribute to the re-stretch issue. Temperature and humidity through the seasons is the largest factor, the quality of the carpet can have an effect, as the better the carpet the better the latex in the carpet, there are several new carpet backings that for the most part eliminate the problem and if the carpet was not installed using a power stretcher it will likely not be stretched well enough. It is important to ask the floor covering dealer and/or installer what to do if your carpet buckles and make sure that you are covered. QUESTION: Between the carpet and the shower in my bathroom, there are MUSHROOMS growing! How do I get rid of them without damaging the carpet? ANSWER: This is a sign of a major moisture problem that is probably a lot worse than just ruining your carpet. You need to pull-up that carpet and see where the moisture is coming from. It may be a broken shower pan, which also means you may have rotting joists underneath. This seems to be a problem that has been going on for a while since the moisture is prevalent enough to cause mushroom spores to germinate. This says to me that the moisture is NEVER drying out. You should call a good professional cleaner or mold Remediation Company in right away before it escalates even more, into a very expensive problem. Hate to say this but you may be at that point already. QUESTION: How do I go about removing candle wax from my carpet? ANSWER: The challenge is to heat the wax up without damaging the carpet. You can try some low level heat options such as running a hair dryer over the area and try to remove the wax but likely you will need to enlist the help of a professional carpet cleaner that uses the manufacturer approved hot water extraction method. I believe this will get the area hot enough (but not too hot) to remove the candle wax. You never want to apply too much heat to a carpet because the fibers have a memory that was heat set at the mill and applying heat incorrectly will re-set that memory and permanently ruin the carpet.
