Laying new carpet against hardwood. What distance should the tack strips be from the wood to insure a good fit

Answer 1

So far all are valid answers. You don't state if or not there are doorways involved, but certainly tack strip need only be a finger thickness away from and base molding, and that allows a kind of "tucking in"

Your "Transition area is your choice and they are sold in brass look, brushed aluminum look, colors of vinyls, and the metal; transition moldings have their own "Tack Strip" that distance in the transition certainly should "Butt" against the hardwood or whatever, and allow that the carpet extends into the molding enough to secure the carpet. What will be needed is to gently tap down the molding, to hold that carpet edge in place.

A decent home store or certainly a carpet store can show you variations of the transition molding, which may in fact have to cover and end cut or side cut of the hardwood?

Steven Wolf

Answer 2

They need to be close enough that you can tuck in the carpet thickness between the strip and the wood, so that no raw carpet edge is showing. I am guessing that is about a half inch for a typical carpet.

Answer 3

From carpets I've pulled up, the tack strip was almost against the baseboards...maybe out 1/2 inch.

Answer 4

if you are using a end cap to transition from the wood to the carpet, leave about a fingers width away from the end cap so that you can tuck the carpet just like you due with your base boards

Answer 5

hold your tackstrips out away from wall about 3/4 of an inch.

Answer 6

pinkie width. remember the pointie thingys point to the wall. Just kidding! they go a finger tip width off the wall.

Answer 7

1/2 inch will be fine