Installing Carpet Padding On Concrete

Concrete absorbs and retains water and the moisture can seep into the carpet padding and then into the carpet.

Installing carpet padding on concrete. Some carpet is backed with jute which is too absorbent to use on concrete. Do not place the grippers at doorways or thresholds because the nails could poke through the carpet and hurt your feet. Moisture barriers as the name implies set up a protective barrier to block moisture from reaching the pad and the carpet. Keep a space equal to about two thirds the thickness of the carpet between the walls and the tack strips using a scrap piece of carpet as a guide.

Consider carpet made from olefin face fiber. Secure the strips with epoxy adhesive. The strips should be installed 1 2 from the wall with the tacks facing the wall. Place carpet gripper strip parallel with the wall and leave a inch space between the strip and the wall.

The best will be quality rubber pads not foam pads. Shoot masonry screws into the strips every 6 8 on center to fasten them to the concrete. Use tin snips to cut the strips as necessary. If you re not going to install your carpet on a subfloor you ll need to make sure that you re picking a kind of fiber that will stand up to concrete s tendency to collect moisture.

Place tackless strips around the entire perimeter of the room. Step 4 lay out the padding. Use apoxy adhesive to secure them to the concrete floor. Step 3 install carpet grippers.

One rubber pad that sounds like a great recycling idea is a 100 rubber under pad made out of recycled car tires. Lay the padding on the floor pull it up to the grippers and staple it to the gripper strip. If using the waffle pad style of carpet pad the waffle side of the carpeting pad should be face up for maximum cushioning and it is cut to fit inside the tackless strips with about gap so that the carpet itself can be attached to the tackless strips and the padding does not interfere with the securing of the carpet. Nail the tack strips to the wooden subfloor or if installing carpet over concrete use masonry tacks or an epoxy adhesive attach the strips to the floor.