A water-leak in a bathroom got a 3-ft by 8-ft section of a wall-to-
wall carpet in an adjoining bedroom wet.

I've pulled the damp section of carpet off the tack strips, removed
the pad and wooden tack-strips.

I then draped the damp section of the carpet over two folding chairs
and used a fan to dry the carpet and the cement slab.

Now that everything is dry, I've put the pad back down and installed
new wooden tack-strips. Now I need to re-lay the carpet.

How do I stretch the carpet and secure it to the tack-strips so the
carpet is tight and lays flat on the floor?

(I don't want to buy or rent a carpet-stretcher because only a 3-ft by
8-ft section of carpet is involved).

gary wrote:
....

How do I stretch the carpet and secure it to the tack-strips so the
carpet is tight and lays flat on the floor?

(I don't want to buy or rent a carpet-stretcher because only a 3-ft by
8-ft section of carpet is involved).

You'll have to improvise something to use as a knee-kicker for the
direction with sides against two walls. At the door you may be able to
improvise some sort of clamping system to stretch.

Simplest is still probably to go rent a kicker. Agree you don't need a
full-blown stretcher, but it's a pita to try to stretch carpet w/o a
decent tool (and I don't have many ideas on an
easy-to-improvise-out-of-stuff-everybody-would-have alternative). I can
see using one of the heavy curry combs and mounting it but can't think
of much else in the toolbox that is likely to work well. I guess one
could start w/ a couple of scraps of lumber and put some drywall screws
through protruding just enough and cobble up something that could work
for such a small area, though, now that I think a little longer...

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