Picked cheap tack strip over the good stuff and paid for it twice

I had a 12x15 living room job last month and decided to save $40 by going with the thin cardboard-backed tack strip instead of the L-shaped metal kind. Big mistake. Three pins snapped on the second stretch and I had to pull up 8 feet of carpet just to replace a strip that crumbled. Ended up spending an extra 45 minutes and had to run to Home Depot mid-job. Has anyone else had that stuff fail on them mid-install or was I just unlucky?

2 comments

2 Comments

robert6418d ago

Tell me about it. That cardboard backed stuff is barely good enough for a closet, let alone a 12x15 room. I learned that lesson the hard way on a hallway runner where the pins just folded over like wet spaghetti. Now I treat the extra $50 as the cost of not wanting to pull my hair out.

mary_wells16d agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, I gotta push back on that one! In my experience, the cheap stuff has worked fine for me on a couple of rental rooms where I knew the carpet was getting replaced anyway. Sure, it's flimsier, but if you're not rolling furniture over it or running a marathon on it daily, it does its job. I get the frustration with pins folding over, but I've had that happen with pricier tack strips too, depends on the subfloor more than anything. Your mileage may vary, but I've saved more than I've lost by going budget, especially in rooms that are mostly covered by furniture. To each their own, but I'd rather spend that extra $50 on a thicker pad underneath, which makes way more difference in how the carpet feels underfoot.