williamw75•5d agoTop Commenter

Tried power stretching vs knee kicker for a big living room yesterday

Been doing carpet for about 8 years and always used a knee kicker for residential jobs. Had a 20x15 living room with some tricky corners and figured Id finally rent a power stretcher. Man what a difference. Got the whole room done in about 2 hours instead of 4 and the seams came out way tighter. Only cost $35 to rent for the day from Home Depot in Cleveland. Anybody else made the switch and never looked back?

3 comments

3 Comments

nina_hall485d ago

Ha @the_jake, sounds like you spent more time cussin at the stretcher than actually stretching! I feel you though, first time I used one I nearly threw it out the window cause I kept pinching the carpet wrong. But seriously once you figure out the head placement its like cheating. I had to move a couch into the kitchen for this job though, so that part sucked.

lucast814d ago

The power stretcher definitely has a learning curve, thats for sure. What finally clicked for me was adjusting the head angle slightly before locking it in place, that tiny change kept the pins from grabbing the carpet wrong and saved a lot of headaches. Also, I started using a knee kicker to rough in the edges before bringing out the power stretcher for the main pull, that way the stretcher only handles the big straight runs. Moving furniture around is always the worst part though, I had to put a dining table in the garage once just to get enough room to work. But once you get past those early frustrations, the finish is so much better than trying to do it all by hand.

the_jake5d ago

Oh man, I gotta push back a little here. Power stretchers are Great for big rooms but I think you got lucky with that 2 hour time. When I first switched I spent almost as long just FIDDLING with the damn thing trying to get the tension right across a 20 foot span. The real trick is making sure youve got enough space to actually set it up properly, cause if theres furniture or weird corners it can be a pain. But yeah, once you get the hang of it the seams are way cleaner and you dont have to crawl around as much.