A repair is only as good as what sits under the damage, so the first few minutes are spent looking.
A tear that looks small on the surface has usually opened the backing underneath. We lift an edge and look.
A patch needs matching carpet: a closet floor, a leftover roll end, or a square taken from under a sofa.
Under a pet accident or a water spot the underpad comes out with the carpet and is replaced.
While we are on the floor we check the whole room for ripples and re-stretch it if the tension has gone.
In 2021, 6.6 percent of Hamilton dwellings were in need of major repairs, against 5.7 percent across Ontario. Floors show that first: a subfloor that has dried and moved opens seams, lifts edges and splits tufts along a traffic line.
We work with what is there rather than talking you into a new floor. Where the carpet still has pile left in it, a patch, a seam and a stretch put the room back in service.
A cigarette burn, a chewed corner by the patio door, a drag mark from a chair leg: all of it is cut out and plugged rather than replaced. We cut along the pile rows, drop in a piece from your own carpet and bond it into the backing so the seam sits flat under foot.
Not from a shop. Carpet lines change and dye lots move, so the match comes from your own floor: a closet, a spare roll end, or a piece lifted from under furniture and patched with something close in its place.
A patch cut from the same carpet, with the pile running the same direction, is hard to find once the floor is walked on. A patch from a different roll will be close, never identical, and we will tell you which one you are getting before we start.
Repairs are priced by fault rather than by the square foot. Typical local figures run about $100 to $200 for a split seam, $150 to $275 for a patch, and $200 to $450 where pet or water damage has reached the underpad. We confirm the number once we have seen the floor.
Usually, yes. One patch and a re-stretch between tenants costs a fraction of relaying the unit, and the work is done in a morning rather than a week.
Yes. Worn nosings, loose treads and a tread that has pulled away from the riser are all repairable, though a staircase where every nosing is bare is usually better re-covered than patched step by step.
Carpet with the backing showing across a whole traffic lane has reached the end of a repair.
Backing that crumbles when you lift it is beyond a patch.
A floor that has taken standing water through several rooms has reached the end of a repair.
When a repair is the wrong call, we say so on the first visit rather than take money for a patch that will not hold.
A roll end kept from the original install is worth more than any shop match, and one bag of scraps has saved plenty of Hamilton floors from being replaced whole.
Where two widths of carpet meet, the join is held by heat-activated seam tape. A join that was glued or under-heated eventually lifts and frays along its length.
We open the failed section, clear the old tape, re-seal the seam with a heat iron and weight it while it sets. A properly sealed seam does not come back.