"jkn" wrote:
Hi all
we have a long, thin living room - about 6m by 3m. About half of
this comprises of an rearward extension to the house that was put up
before we moved in (1960s ex-council house, on a slope in Brighton).

About five years ago we had the room re-carpeted. IIRC we had decent
underlay put down at the same time. It's been fine since.

I've recently noticed a 'wrinkle', in the carpet, at about the midway
point, ie. roughly dividing the carpet into two 3m x 3m areas. It's
only slight, but given that this marks the point at which the extension
begins, it's got me a little concerned.

Is it likely that the carpet was not originally stretched enough, has
gone a bit 'baggy', and now needs re-stretching? Does this often
happen? I'm slightly concerned that, given the hot summer followed by
recent torrential rain, there might have been some subsidence of the
extension, which the carpet is showing up.

Your thoughts very welcome

Cheers
Jon N

I had a new carpet fitted in a bedroom and when the fitter had finished I
asked him to look at the wrinkled fitted dining room carpet to see if he
could stretch it. He took one look and said no, because the backing was
disintegrating. I lifted it off the gripper rods and rolled it back, and
sure enough the woven hessian backing was breaking up. So, that's one
possibility, the carpet has stretched because the backing is disintegrating.
If you had subsidence you would most likely have cracks in either your
external or internal walls.