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My carpet was badly burned by a heat lamp. Bad enough that the room started to fill with smoke. The burn is about 8 inches in diameter. The entire room is about 13'x 14'. Is it possible to just replace the burned portion or should I just replace all the carpet in the room?

Edit: The burn is in the top left of the room about 18" from the left and 8" from the top. Also, after cutting the burned carpet away we discovered that the it had also burned through the wood floor underneath.

Also while I have your attention: Smoke alarms have an expiration date. My smoke alarms were past their expiration date and DID NOT ALERT US. Check your smoke alarms and replace the ones that are expired.

Hole burned through floor

Burned Carpet

Burned Carpet lose up

Unknown
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  • Where is the burn mark in reference to the room? How old is the carpet? – DMoore Jan 16 '20 at 23:13
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    try a patch ... if that does not work, then replace the whole carpet – jsotola Jan 17 '20 at 02:02
  • Do you have any spare carpet? Check cupboard/wardrobes, or if the property has any edged mats? – Criggie Jan 17 '20 at 11:31
  • I've seen gadgets like round cookie cutters used to make perfect holes and perfect replacement plugs. But never one as large as what you need. But maybe you can find one. – Steve Wellens Jan 17 '20 at 14:57
  • do you need to fix it? it's hardly noticeable. You're lucky the place didn't burn down... – dandavis Jan 17 '20 at 17:54
  • Did a smoke detector trigger? If not, why not? You should consider yourself fabulously lucky, and install additional smoke detectors. Also why was the heat lamp on the floor? Figure out why and how it fell down, and prevent this from happening again. Perhaps more weight in its base, or a bolt-down fixture, or some kind of retention bracket. Basically earthquake-safe your stuff. – Criggie Jan 17 '20 at 22:04
  • The smoke detectors didn't go off. Word of advice, smoke detectors stop working after 10 years. Be sure to replace them. – Unknown Jan 20 '20 at 18:20

1 Answers1

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It is possible to replace a section of carpet if you have a piece that is large enough. To tell the truth you will be able to see the section in most cases, to see other splices look at the doorways that have carpet you can usually see a line, sometimes the “grain” of the carpet is wrong so it even shows worse.

If you have a large enough pice and want to try you can rent an seaming iron (or buy one for ~50$, seaming tape will also be needed, the place I used to rent my iron from usually had tape for .50 per foot.

Once you have your scrap, iron and tape a good sharp razor knife is needed cut your hole out. Place the scrap over the hole and rotate it 90 deg and see if one orientation looks better. Cut the scrap pice for a very tight fit. Cut 4 strips of the seaming tape longer than the sides,

Heat the iron make sure to have a place to set it as the hot glue will mess up the carpet between pieces. Make sure to do the most visible strip first and do the strip that will be least visible last. Place the first strip of tape under the first edge overlapping on the back side, place the hot iron on the tape it will take a second to heat the glue but you are also heating the back of the carpet. Start pulling the iron until it reached the end pressing the carpet into the glue. Pull iron out set on tray. Wait for that to cool. Once that is cool put another strip under and repeat, let cool, then repeat making sure to let each section cool before moving on until done.

As I said you may always see the spot but if you do a good job others may not notice it, don’t over vacuum this area it will look slightly different for a while but the beater bar on a vacuum can cause a runner, clip them if you see them at just slightly below the average height.

If you take this on let us know how it turns out. And good luck.

Ed Beal
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  • Would you suggest a square patch, or a round patch? Guessing tape is easier to do on straight lines. Or how about two cuts to the edges, making a rectangle, and then replace the whole corner ? – Criggie Jan 17 '20 at 11:28
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    Square the seaming tape would be hard to do in a circle I have never seen other than straight lines. If you are close to a corner or wall and have a large enough piece that would be best. This is why I said to do the last side closer to the wall because many times it can be hidden. 3 sides or 2 will be less noticeable. – Ed Beal Jan 17 '20 at 14:01
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    I need to update , my wife reminded me about a angled or kind of scroll repair I did on a flip, a long time ago. I purchased wider seaming tape and then the wider tape had very little deflection, I could see the problem but took the “scrap” from a small bedroom with the same carpet, then we changed this tiny bedroom to a totally different color but the room we used was changed the same direction and I only had to put “cheap” carpet in that room that did have some problems, that were tossed , saved thousands and it looked good enough to sell in 3 days above our asking price. Done this +5 times. – Ed Beal Jan 18 '20 at 01:22