Feeling carpet gripper spikes though carpet on stairs

[mobilejake]

Hey all,
I just had some carpet put in and weirdly, i can feel the spikes of the grippers when i stand at the edge of a room. I could live with that, but I can also feel the spikes when walking up the stairs (without shoes) and that is really annoying and uncomfortable!

Anyone know if this is normal or should i call the fitters back?

How can I fix it or have the fitters left too much gap between grippers and stair on stairs??

Cheers

 

[kbdiy]

... or is a it cheap thin carpet? No offence but it does sound like it.

 

[mobilejake]

No offence taken!

It's a felt back mid range carpet - should i have gone action bac/hessien?

I was advised it was compatible with underlay though underlay was not necessary. I guess that meant using grippers rather that sticking it down...i think i am working it out myself and it is not a pretty picture for me!

So I take it, it was my choice of carpet backing and not the fitting?

 

[kbdiy]

I think you'll find felt backing is at the cheaper end of the range. Not sure what your saying about underlay - do you have any underlay?

Certainly with underlay you would need gripper rod to secure the carpet but with felt backing you will feel the pins. I fitted one for my daughter, out of necessity cost-wise, and you could tell right away it was bottom end quality. Horses for courses as they say.

 

[SFK]

Dear mobilejake,
The underlay lies inside the wood mounting of the of the "Carpet Gripper" so the use of underlay or its thickness has no effect on this. It is all down to length of spikes and thickness of carpet.

The Carpet Gripper comes with different length spikes, but the normal stuff is classed as "Medium" as shown here:
http://www.homebase.co.uk/en/homebaseuk/vitrex-carpet-gripper--med-pin-8-pack-064563

I bought relatively cheap carpet, or rather carpet with relatively thin backing and so my carpet fitter warned me that I should have my old Spikes removed and used Carpet Gripper with short spikes. Which I did not do, and so he was correct as with my thin carpet the spikes could be felt.

My (rather aggressive) solution to this was to lightly tap the carpet where the spikes are with a small (clean) hammer to slightly bend the spikes and reduce their length so that my feet cannot feel them.

SFK

 

[crazydaze]

Feltback's should be laid on a specific, non-pin style gripper, but rarely are, they certainly should only be fitted on short pin gripper, standard medium pin will be too long and long pin gripper will protude a mile.

Feltback carpets are cheap carpets specifically designed to be laid directly onto the subfloor with no gripper or underlay. If you insist on firring with gripper and underlay, the correct gripper should be used as described above, in this case about all you can do is try rubbing the pins down (bending them) with a piece of steel rubbed ard under pressure over the pins to try and bend them over.