Carpet is more repairable than people assume and less DIY-friendly than they hope. A burn, a bleach spot or a pet-ruined patch is cut out and a remnant is cut in; ripples are stretched out; a seam is re-ironed; a snag is trimmed. All of it is done in an hour or two by someone with the tools. The homeowner’s version of most of these repairs is visible forever, which is why this page hands more to the pro than the others do.
Two repairs on this page are genuinely yours: trimming a snag, and lifting crushed pile. The rest depend on tools most people do not own and cannot rent well — a power stretcher, a seaming iron, a carpet cookie-cutter — and on a skill that shows when it is missing. A carpet patch done by a pro in an hour costs about the price of a service call and disappears. The same patch done with a utility knife and glue is a square you will see every day.
The other thing to know is the pad. A pet accident, a flood or a wicking stain that keeps returning is usually a pad problem, and the repair is to pull back the carpet, cut out and replace the pad under that spot, and lay the carpet back. It is straightforward, it is the fix people put off for years, and it is on this page.
DIY a realistic job for a careful person · Hire it the tools or the skill are the job · Replace a repair costs more than it is worth
A cigarette or iron burn, a bleach or dye spill, a pet spot that will not lift, a tear from a dragged appliance.
Damage larger than a foot or so, or several spots in one room, or a carpet old enough that the donor piece is a different color from wear, is a room of new carpet.
The carpet was installed with a knee kicker only and never power-stretched, or it has relaxed with humidity and heavy use, or a heavy item was dragged across it. The backing has stretched and the carpet is loose on its tack strips. The diagnosis, on Why Floors Fail →
A carpet that has been restretched twice and ripples again has a backing that has given up; that is a replacement. Ripples that appeared after a flood are usually delamination, which is also a replacement.
Seam tape that was never fully activated, a seam placed in a traffic lane, or a seam that has been vacuumed across with a beater bar until the edges frayed.
A seam whose edges have unraveled back into the carpet is a seam that cannot be closed; that section is patched or the carpet replaced.
A claw, a toy, a vacuum brush on loop pile. A loop has been pulled up above the surface; in loop-pile carpet, pulling further unravels a row.
Multiple runs across a loop-pile carpet in a house with a cat are the carpet telling you it is the wrong construction; the next one is cut pile.
Furniture feet, a rug, or the traffic lane itself compressing the fibers. Polyester and olefin crush and stay crushed; nylon, triexta and wool recover better. The diagnosis, on Why Floors Fail →
A polyester or olefin traffic lane that is flat and gray is worn, not crushed. That is the end of that carpet.
Urine that reached the pad and returns as a smell on every humid day, or a stain that wicks back after every cleaning, or a flood that wet the pad through. The diagnosis, on Why Floors Fail →
Pad soaked across a whole room by a flood is replaced as a room, and carpet whose backing delaminated in the flood goes with it. Urine through the pad into a plywood subfloor for months sometimes means the subfloor section is cut out too.
Yes, and it is a standard professional repair: the damaged area is cut out, a donor piece from a remnant or a closet is cut to the same shape and pile direction, and it is bonded in with seam tape and a seaming iron. Done by a pro with the right cutter it disappears, for $100 to $250. Done with a utility knife and glue it is usually a visible square, which is why this is one of the few repairs on this site that says hire it.
About $150 to $300 per room, which is a service call and an hour or two with a power stretcher. It is the repair for ripples and waves in a carpet that was never properly stretched or has relaxed, and it usually holds for the life of the carpet. A carpet that ripples again after a second stretch has a backing that has given up.
Trim it. Cut the pulled loop or tuft level with the pile with sharp scissors and leave it alone. Never pull it — in loop-pile carpet a pulled loop unravels a whole row, and the row is then a patch. If a run has already opened, a drop of latex carpet adhesive in the channel and the loop tucked back with a screwdriver holds a short one.
The smell is in the pad, not the carpet, and cleaning the surface cannot reach it. Pull the carpet back off the tack strip, cut out and replace the pad under the spot, seal a stained subfloor with a shellac primer, clean the carpet’s backing with an enzyme cleaner, and lay it back down. A few hours and under $100, and it is the only thing that works.
Sometimes, if it was clean water and the carpet was dried within a day or two: the carpet is lifted, the pad replaced, the subfloor dried, and the carpet cleaned and restretched. Carpet that stayed wet for days, or whose backing has delaminated (rippled and separated), or that was wet with anything but clean water, is replaced.
When the damage is larger than a foot or two, when there are several damaged spots in a room, when the traffic lanes are worn flat and gray rather than crushed, or when the carpet is old enough that a donor patch no longer matches its faded, worn neighbors. A patch on a ten-year-old polyester carpet is a new square on an old floor; at that point the room is recarpeted.