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I swore by knee kickers for 8 years until an old installer in Phoenix made me redo a whole room
Last month I was doing a 40 yard stretch in a rental in Phoenix and this older guy named Dale was hired to help me finish up. I've always set carpet with my knee kicker first and then power stretched the rest, that's just how I was taught and it worked fine for years. Dale watched me do one bedroom and then asked me to pull the whole thing back up because he said the backing was already showing stress marks near the wall. I got kind of annoyed honestly but he showed me the wrinkles forming about 6 inches out from where I kicked, said the kicker loads the carpet uneven and the stretcher can't fix what the kicker messed up. He had me use the power stretcher on everything, even the closets, and then just kick the edges into the tack strip. Took me 2 extra hours on that room but when we finished the next morning the seams were flat and the customer walked across it and you could not feel a single ridge. I've done it his way on my last 5 jobs now and the walls are cleaner too since I'm not fighting the kicker into the trim. My knees are honestly thanking me. Anybody else switch over completely or do you still kick the main field?
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cameron_martin1012h ago
Man, this is the same story as everything in life. The fast way and the right way are almost never the same thing, and the fast way costs you later. I see it with guys who slap in a unit and skip the static pressure test, runs fine for a year then the compressor eats it. Dale did you a favor by making you redo it even though it ticked you off at the time. Getting shown your bad habit by someone with 30 years on you stings, but that's usually where the real learning happens.
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