joel_clark37•16h agoOG Member

Tried using a power stretcher on a 20 year old pad and regretted it instantly

Last month I had a job in an old house near Portland and figured I'd save time by using a power stretcher on this worn out pad underneath. The thing literally ripped the pad in three spots within 10 minutes, leaving me with these jagged humps under the carpet that I had to fix with scrap pieces. Ended up spending an extra 2 hours pulling the carpet back up and replacing sections of pad by hand. Learned the hard way that you gotta check the pad condition first before cranking the tension up. Has anyone else had a pad fail like that on a quick stretch job?

3 comments

3 Comments

sean_cooper5816h ago

Three rips in 10 minutes? Man that's brutal. I've seen pads shred but never that fast. You must have hit the sweet spot of old brittle foam and too much tension all at once. That's the kind of thing that sticks with you for a while.

the_elliot14h ago

Hold up though, I've had the opposite luck with some of those old pads. Sometimes that brittle foam holds up better than the new stuff because it's glued down tighter. I've seen three year old pads rip in a week because the manufacturer skimped on the rubber compound. Maybe the tension was way too high, but I'm not convinced it's always the pad's fault. You might've just gotten unlucky with a bad batch or a weird install angle. I've pulled up 15 year old foam that was still in one piece after a full stretch.

nathan90116h ago

Used to think power stretchers were bulletproof on any old install but that changed real quick after a pad crumbled into three pieces on me. Had to pull everything up and patch it with scraps just like you said.