Fitting a wall to wall sisal landing (or any natural flooring)

How to avoid a sticky situation

Before we start the fitting tutorial, I want to share a danger. We’re using glue and glues sticky stuff. I’m not talking about the Super-glue “ok-fingers” kind of sticky either.

Slow-drying glue gets on your clothes, particularly socks, and then transfers to anything you touch for hours to come. To risk-reduce, I recomend the following action:

• Wear old clothes you dont mind ruining
• Fit your landing before your stairrunner, so you dont walk glue down the stairs (you wont need glue to fit your runner)
• Wear a hat, and if you work up a sweat, dont take it off . One of our trainees did that and put his peaked-cap back on without noticing a spot of glue on his head. He couldn’t get his hat off for two days. He even had to shower in it!
• When you’re done, take off your clothes and bag or hang them for a day or two while the glue dries
• Wash your hands well on completion

I know I sound like a fusser, but I’ve ruined a customer’s runner before by getting glue on it, and I dont want that to happen to yours! And of course there’s the hat risk I mentioned earlier!

All glues are not made equal (choose an Eco safe one)

Twenty years ago strong glues were solvent based .They were bad for the fitters lungs. The solvents kicked off a smell for a couple of weeks. The Voc’s were made of sterner stuff, sometimes emitting gases for two years after installation .Thankfully those days are gone. There are plenty of natural flooring Eco glues available nowadays. Bostik make one called Contact A950 Eco, and there are many of others on the market .

Some good news

Now we’ve got the cautions out of the way, let me share some good news. If you use glue you dont need a knee kicker, and when you smooth the carpet on to the glue, it looks as flush as a pro job, even if you’re a first time fitter.

Tools you need (you’ve probably got most of these already)

• Hammer
• Bolster
• Stanley knife
• spare Blades x 10
• Regular plyers
• Glue
• Dustpan and brush
• Vacuum cleaner
• String and refuse sack for the old carpet (unless you can reuse it in a cupboard or shed)
• Optional – Snips to cut the gripper, but if not use regular pliers or bolster
• Notch trowel

 

Terms

• Gripper rod
• Underlay
• Bolster
• snips

Preparation

To fit natural flooring, first you need a clean, dry, dust free surface.

Step 1. Remove the old flooring

• Unhook the old carpet from the perimeter gripper
• Use you knife to cut the carpet into 1m (3ft) slices. Roll up the carpet, tie with string, bag and remove form the area.
• Do the same with your underlay, unless you’re planning to refit it.
• If you’re planning to reuse the underlay, email us a pic and we will confirm if its suitable
• Do not remove the gripper rod, its almost always reusable, saving, time, money and the environment

 

Step 2. Thoroughly clean the area

A successful fit starts with a clean, dry, dust-free floor.

• Thoroughly vacuum the are including behind the gripper.
• Leave the area for ten minutes ( coffee break – surely!)
• Vacuum once more to remove any dust which has resettled form the air
• if you’re reusing underlay, make sure that’s spotless too.

Fitting

To fit a landing carpet you need the fitting area empty, plus some extra space for your legs

Step 1. Fitting the gripper

• If there is existing gripper re-use it. It saves time, money and the environment
• if you’re fitting new gripper, fix with pre-nails provided, to the perimeter of the area, leaving a 7mm gap from the wall.
• Ensure the small sloping gripper pins point at the wall not you.
• Cut gripper to size, (it’s easy to cut) with snips or pliers and bolster

Step 2. Fit the underlay

• Underlay is fitted up to the gripper not over it
• If your using our Cloud 9 underlay,  lay it Cloud 9 side up.
• Lay the underlay on the floor and butt against the gripper wherever possible
• Where the underlay overlaps the gripper cut using a Stanley knife so it sits neatly up to it.
• Fold the underlay back so half the floor is exposed. Trowel glue on to the floor.
• Re-stick the underlay by laying it on to the glue and smoothing out wards towards the gripper with your hands
• Next stick the other half
• NB . Usually when you smooth the underlay out it may slightly over lap the gripper. If it does trim back

 

Allow 15 minutes for the glue to dry

Sounds like a coffee break again?

Step 3 Fitting your new floor

Fitting the floor is the same process as fitting the underlay description above, EXCEPT it obviously needs to meet the wall and one or two cm extra.

• Carpet is flayed up to and a little bit up the wall.
• Lay out your carpet ensuring its  flat, free of creases and straight.
• Fold half the carpet back so half the underlay is exposed. Trowel glue on to the underlay
• Re-stick the carpet by laying it on to the glue and smoothing out wards towards the gripper with your hands
• Next stick the other half and then smooth that out
• Leave the floor to dry for a half hour
• Use the back of your knife to create a crease where the carpet meets the wall.
• with the front of your knife cut about half cm above the crease so the carpet meets the wall and has sufficient overlap to be tucked into the gripper
• Bolster the waste between the wall and gripper rod
• Walk away for a quick break then go back and tidy up and vacuum

Job done!