Blowout in a hotel hallway, almost took out 3 rooms

Doing a 5th floor hallway in a Marriott outside Columbus and the power stretcher grabbed a seam I didn't even see, ripped the carpet right out of the tackstrip. It sounded like a gunshot and the fold back pulled the pad loose for a good 6 feet before I could drop the knee. Anybody else had a splice fail like that on commercial grade with a room change underneath, or was I just unlucky with the subfloor?

1 comments

1 Comment

the_jade18d ago

That "ripped the carpet right out of the tackstrip" part is the worst, man. Commercial grade is supposed to hold better than that, but if the pad is glued down weird or there's a room change underneath, that seam is just a ticking time bomb. I've had it happen once on a hotel install where the previous guys double-cut the seam and left zero overlap. You're not unlucky, that subfloor was probably shifting or the tackstrip was rusted out. Sucks you had to eat that 6 feet of rework, but at least it didn't take out the whole hallway.