Black Marks On my Carpet around the edges???

[bluebubble]

Hey everyone!

Im having my house gutted, rewired, insulated, new kitchen, etc etc.

At the moment all my carpets upstairs have black marks around the edges and Im worried that with new carpets being laid it will happen again.

Ive been told the following helps:-

1) Lay newspaper on all floor before putting the underlay.
2) Seal the gaps under the skirting using flexible sealant.
3) Buy special plastic strips that go around the edges.

My question is that if I decide to seal using a sealant, wont the carpet fitter end up destroying these when he pushes the carpet under?

Any advice would help, I have always hoovered around the edges but it seems to just make it worse.

Kelly

 

[big-all]

the skirting should be tight to the floor to give the carpet fitter an edge to work to
when the house was built there would be no gaps in the floor board and no gap between wall and floor as this would de filled by the skirting
over time with settlement and shrinkage gaps can appear but they arnt ment to be there
there is of course the new tendancy to use the skirting to cover the expansion gap on laminate and floating floors
you should only get gaps when flooring is removed or settlement has taken place but on all occations filling should take place

 

[Symptoms]

bubble - the carpet fitter won't push the carpet under the skirting into that gap to hold the carpet. He'll nail gripper strip (rail) to the floor around the periphery of the room with a slight gap away from the skirting; it's into the gap that he's created that the carpet will be pushed. He should also lay a 'dust paper' over the floorboards before the underlay and carpet.

You are likely to always get this dust problem unless you block these gaps. Depending on how wide your gaps are you should be able to fill them with sealant or, if they're really big let-in some wood strips or apply a profile to the face of the skirting to cover the gap. If you have a plain (or torus) skirting consider a plain (rectangular strip) profile; more decorative skirting consider a profile that 'reflects' the general form of the skirting. Prime & undercoat the profile before you fix it to the skirting and apply the finish well in advance of the carpet fitter coming. The paint should be hard otherwise the fitter could scrape it when putting the carpet in.

 

[^woody^]

The black is dust, and without being rude, if you vacuum right up the the skirting then it wont go black

 

[clareg]

Kelly,

I have an old house and had this problem, it is due to gaps in your floorboards and if you vacuum, it pulls the dust from below the floor boards up through the carpet and stains it. We solved this issue by fixing hardboard over the top of the floorboards and the carpet fitter fitted our new carpet on top of the hardboard fixing the gripper rods through the hardboard to the floorboards below.

Hey presto!" our new carpet has not gone black around the edges. It took my husband and I one evening to do our bedroom but you need to make sure you dampen the hardboard (with a misting spray) before you nail it down. This ensures that the hard board shrinks a little after it is nailed down and keeps it tight in place.

Good luck

 

[mattysupra]

The black is dust, and without being rude, if you vacuum right up the the skirting then it wont go black

woody, it is not always down to poor cleaning! On older property's dust will be drawn under the skirting leaving dirty marks. If you vacuum these places it will become worse.

To fix it, you need to overboard and seal with silicon, the gap underneath the skirts.