16
PSA: Power stretcher vs knee kicker for large rooms - my mistake cost me a redo
I put in a 20x15 foot living room in a house near Albany last Tuesday. Used my knee kicker like I always do for smaller jobs. By the time I got to the far wall, I had ripples I could not smooth out. Had to pull the whole job and rent a power stretcher from the supply house. Night and day difference. The stretcher got the carpet tight across the whole span in half the time. Has anyone else run into this problem with rooms over 12 feet?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
sarahhart1mo ago
Yeah, the "difference between a knee kicker and a power stretcher" thing... it's like trying to push a heavy couch across a shag carpet by hand versus getting a couple of guys with those moving straps. The knee kicker just can't get that even tension across a big span, you're fighting the carpet the whole way. It's the same with a lot of stuff, you know, where the tool that works for the small job just doesn't scale up.
7
lily39411d ago
Man that hurts just reading it. Ripping out a whole job because of a tool issue is brutal. I had the same problem on a 14x12 bedroom last month and learned that lesson the hard way too. The knee kicker just doesn't have the reach for anything over 12 feet in my experience. It's one of those things you don't think about until you're staring at a wavy mess across the room.
5