I finally get why some guys swear by power stretchers over knee kickers

Had a chat with a 30 year installer named Pete at a supply shop in Denver last Thursday. He said using a knee kicker on anything over 12 feet is just asking for wrinkles and callbacks. Said he sees new guys all the time trying to save 10 minutes and ending up redoing the whole room. Hit different because I noticed my last few jobs had some rippling near doorways and I never connected it to my kicker technique. How do you decide when to grab the power stretcher versus just kicking it in?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_cole26d ago

And that bit about the door jambs is key, I've noticed that's where almost all the early wrinkling shows up because the kicker just can't get that last stretch into those tight corners. Makes you wonder how many callbacks we could avoid by just taking the extra few minutes to set up the power stretcher right from the start.

rodriguez.diana1mo ago

Wait, hold up. You mean Pete actually said the rippling near doorways could be from the kicker technique? That feels like a huge revelation to me. I've been doing this for almost 8 years and I always blamed the carpet being bad or the pad being uneven. Never once thought it was how I was stretching the stuff. That's kind of blowing my mind right now because I've definitely fought with those same spots more times than I want to admit. Sounds like Pete saved you a lot of headaches down the road.

thomas.tyler1mo ago

Yeah Pete's got it right. I grab the power stretcher for anything over 10 feet or if there's a door jamb within 3 feet of a wall.