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In this video today, I'm going to show you how to join your own carpets. It's an essential
process in doing your own DIY. There's two methods. A cold tape method and a hot glue
method and both of these are very easy to do. There's three basic steps to joining a
copy. First is a preparation of the carpet, laying the tape under the join and the third,
pressing the carpet into the join and making the final sew.
Materials are materials you'll need to join your own carpet are your carpet installation
kit, cold tape, your hot melting end tape and safety's very important so just make sure
you have a pair of knee pads. Now just imagine we're at home and we're putting our carpet
in the bedroom. Now the carpet comes in 3.66 meters wide. Unfortunately, our room's a little
bit over that and we've got to put a join in. Where are we going to put the join? We'll
probably put it opposite the door way where it's going to be out of the way of people
walking over it all of the time.
First thing we've got to do once we've located where we will put the join, we'll have to
prepare the seam to the carpet. This is really important because that's going to be the whole
finish of the carpet. So to trim the carpet this is what we need to do. We use a straight
edge which you'll place on the back of the carpet so that it's equal above inch and if
you think you might need to put a piece of board underneath so it doesn't cut the carpet
underneath. That's the most important.
It should come away nice and even and leave you with a perfectly straight edge. Repeat
the cut on the filler edge and place it neatly next to the carpet that you've already joined.
Make sure everything lines up and that everything's nice and neat. Now that we're happy with the
edge, now we can do the join.
All right. Now we come to the fun part. Joining the carpet. We're actually going to use the
cold tape method. Cold tape's like a sticky backing. It's got a paper that lies on the
underlay and a backing that peels off. What we do is simply put it on top of the carpet
for start to get the length. Right down here into the room just making sure that there's
a little bit of a return. I'm not on the end of the carpet and that's so that later on
we can pick these loose pieces up.
Just gently place it under the carpet just nice and neat. Just make sure that the carpet
is up above the smooth edge a couple of inches. That's so that we can trap the last two pieces
and then gently fold it under the carpet and make sure that it is actually nice and even
the whole length of the carpet. Realign the carpet if you need to because sometimes it
does slip around and then we're ready to peel the backing off.
Simply just pull back the carpet. Just attach these backing paper and just gently pull it
up just making sure that the carpet when it sits back on it you can just gently push it
back into shape and then keep going and just pull the carpet out like that and then sort
of feed the carpet into itself until the joints are nice and tight and just continue that
process all the way along. The tape comes off very easily and it shouldn't be a hassle.
So just apply it pressure along the joint by pulling it in. Then with the back of your
hand or with the front of your hand just smooth it along until you're happy with the join.
Now the join's done with the cold tape and it looks fantastic. We'll move onto another
method of joining carpet which is called hot melt.
The hot melt method is just as easy, but it's twice as strong. Now that we've got our carpet
in position we're going to use our hot melt tape. Hot melt tape is a paper backing with
a reinforcement with a hot glue that's melted with heat. Now we're placing the tape underneath
the carpet. Just make sure the tape's nicely located in the middle and make sure that a
little bit of a tab just comes up on the skirting there. Just run it along with your hand just
gently putting it under. Just keep it central because we need the glue to be even on both
sides and just run along the rest of your seam.
Once we've got it all in position, we've got the carpet realigned we can use our hot melt
iron. Just be careful. Gently place it underneath the carpet and onto the hot glue. The glue
stays hot for a few seconds so you've got plenty of time. Then very gently position
the carpet back into place. Once the carpet hits the hot glue it'll actually stay there
fairly well. Now gently move the iron along pressing the carpet into the tape.
What you can do is just have a piece of [tinder] or something like that and just follow it
up at the back of your hand. It just saves your hand from getting hot. Then continue
the process along the whole seam until you get to the end of the wall. Simple as that.
So we're using a hot glue iron to actually do our join. It only comes in two parts. There's
a safety plate. That's the cradle that the iron sits in. Just make sure that when you're
using the iron or when you use the iron put it back in the plate and because it is a hot
glue iron, the top of it is very hot and especially underneath, that's where the glue tends to
stick. That's very, very hot as well. So keep your fingers well at bay.
Okay. Now that we've finished our join and it's looking really terrific we can just trim
the little baggy bits off. They're the bits that just poke up between the join. Just gently
pick up the thread and move your scissors. You can use a household cleaner scissors if
you like. Just go along and just trim the excess up until you're quite satisfied.
There we have it. A perfect join. The finish to any room. If you need any more assistance,
just go to a Bunning's Warehouse and ask any floor and team member. They will give you
the assistance you need. Be sure to check out our DIY video on how to lay carpeting.