How to repair a carpet

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When your carpet is looking a little worse for wear, you might be tempted to replace it – after all, who wouldn’t be tempted by all the amazing carpet options we have here at Tapi? But there are some pretty quick fixes you can make yourself that will have your carpet looking good as new.

If you want to fix any marks or indents in your carpet, then you should take a look at our carpet care guide for quick fixes for those – but for bigger issues that require repairs, this guide will take you through everything you need in your carpet repair kit, and how to fix the most common carpet problems. Alternatively, if you're living in a rented property, and think it might be time to replace your carpet, have a read of our guide on whether you can change flooring in a rental house.

What you need in your carpet repair kit

We recommend that if you need to fix a carpet, you speak with one of our flooring experts to see what your options are. They’ll be able to tell you whether your carpet needs replacing completely, or if our professional carpet fitters could come by and help you out with repairs. But if it’s only a small repair you need to make and you’re feeling pretty confident, then jump in with your carpet repair kit.

You will need:

Seam adhesive
Needle and carpet thread
Backing fabric
Tweezers
Scissors
Tape measure
Spare carpet fabric
Utility knife
Superglue
Fine tooth comb

Tapi top tip - You should keep any offcuts from your new carpet when it’s installed, just in case you need to repair it in the future.

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Fixing common carpet problems

Now that you have your carpet repair kit ready to go, you can begin to tackle some of the common carpet problems that you can fix yourself.

How to fix a burnt carpet

There are a few different ways you might have burn marks on your carpet - you may have dropped a candle or a cigarette on the floor accidentally, and this has left you with a scorch mark that needs fixing. Your first step should be to clean as much of the scorch mark off as you can with a damp cloth and carpet cleaner – there’s plenty of information in our guide on how to remove carpet stains.

If the scorch marks are proving difficult to remove, then this just means that you will have to remove a part of your carpet. Sometimes, this might just mean taking away a few strands of carpet that are affected, which is easy. Just use scissors to snip off the strands and go to the edges of your carpet where there will be spare fibres tucked underneath. Cut these off and use super glue to apply the individual strands in the affected area and allow the glue to dry. You can snip the ends to make them match the rest of the pile height.

For larger patches, you will need to remove the entire affected area. The easiest way to do this neatly is to lift your carpet from the edges and using fabric scissors or a utility knife, cut out the damaged patch of carpet. Lifting the carpet helps to prevent you from cutting into your underlay or potentially damaging your subfloor.

Next, measure the hole that you’ve removed and cut your spare carpet fabric to match these measurements. Next, cut your backing fabric, adding one inch around the edge so that you have something to attach your new piece of carpet to the larger carpet area. Attach the backing fabric to the underside of your new piece of carpet using super glue, wait for this to dry, and then superglue this to the underside of your piece of new carpet around the edge that you’ve left.

Once this has adhered properly, you can reattach your carpet to the subfloor and underlay – our guide to fitting carpet has all the tips and tricks you need to make this as neat as possible – and then use a small fine-tooth comb to brush the fibres to match the surrounding carpet.

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How to fix melted carpet

Melted carpet tends to happen under extreme heat because carpet fibres can be flammable – for example, you may have carpet that’s too close to an electric or log-burning fire, or you accidentally left a pair of straighteners or an iron on the carpet. Reducing the risk of exposed heat is the best way to prevent melted carpet, but if you’re already looking at melted carpet fibres, here’s how to fix it.

For areas that are only mildly affected, you can use medium-grit sandpaper to sand away the melted fibres. This is good for surface-level melting or burning, but if your carpet is more damaged than this, then you should follow the same procedure for burned carpet, by removing the affected patch and replacing it with either spare fibres or a spare patch of carpet.

How to fix torn carpet

Torn carpet can happen under several different circumstances – it may be you dropped something sharp, or it could be you’ve tried to move furniture without lifting it, which has resulted in a rip in your carpet. Some small tears are easy to fix, whereas large rips can take much longer. You may decide the rip is too big to repair without it being noticeable, in which case you decide to replace the carpet. But for small to medium tears, here’s how to fix them.

The quickest repair you can make involves taking super glue and glueing the rip back together as carefully as you can. In an ideal world, you would do this by taking up the carpet and applying the superglue to the underside of the carpet, so you don’t get any superglue on the carpet fibres and create a noticeable seam, but it’s not always easy to remove and then put back your carpet again.

If this is the case, then you may find that sewing your carpet back together is less messy and less effort. Taking a needle with a larger eye and thick carpet thread, start from one end of the tear and work your way to the other end, taking care to ensure the thread matches in colour to your carpet as closely as possible, and that you keep your stitches close together to avoid any future tears.

How to repair a hole in the carpet

Similar to a burn, a hole in your carpet will not be easy to glue or sew back together like a rip because a piece of your carpet is now missing. This may be caused by gradual wear and tear, such as heavy furniture being placed on top of it, so ensuring that you have protective pads on your furniture is important to prevent this.

The best way to repair a hole in your carpet is to follow the same steps we went through for burnt and melted carpet – replacing the damaged piece of carpet with new fibres or a new patch of fresh carpet using adhesive and combing it out to blend it in with the rest of your flooring. You may notice that your new carpet patch is a slightly lighter colour than the rest of your carpet, but this will fade over time.

Professional carpet repair

If you’re not comfortable with making these repairs yourself, or you would just prefer a professional to help you out, then enquire with a carpet cleaning company or repair company in your local area. You can also book a free home visit or come into the store to speak to one of our floorologists about how we can help, and we can give you a diagnosis about whether we think your carpet will need replacing or not. We also have a carpet removal service you can use if you decide to replace your carpet, so get in touch with us today, or find out how to dispose of carpet yourself.

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Post author

Jeremy Garrish Buyer Jeremy has 35 years of carpet industry knowledge

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Published: 01-12-2022