How to fit a stair carpet Help, advice, information, answers and tips on all types of flooring from laminate and carpet to timber and vinyl

[besonders1]

I am looking to fit a new stair carpet fully fitted wall to wall, I have fitted other carpets in standard rooms quite well so want to have a go. My stairs are plain just straight down nothing fancy. I just want to know-

do professional carpet fitters make a template of the stair carpet first such as the old carpet then cut a long peice off that, ?

or -

do they cut the carpet biggar that the width of the stairs i,e 2/3 inches either side fit/stretch it to the gripper rods all the way up, then trim the carpet each side like fitting a regular room carpet?

I would imagine that the second option may be more accurate just incase the walls of the stairs were not 100% square but is this option doable particulary trying to cut the carpet along the rises in situ?

[thedoctor]

See our project page on fitting stair carpets https://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/carpet-stairs.htm

[qualitycarpets]

I worked in a carpet shop for years and we always made a plan for carpet. Basically you cut the carpet into 3 step strips and apply each section separately. Usually about 3'3" off of the carpet for an average roll of carpet that gives 4 steps in the width(measure it properly of course) and buy as much as you need. Say twelve steps is 3 X 4 so you need about 1.5m X 4m of carpet, cut it into four equal pieces and apply each one to the stairs.

I'm not a fitter, but I'd do it myself. Start on the inside of one of the risers on the steps and apply the carpet. knock it in at the edges and on the inside of every riser onto the gripper and trim. Like I said though, I'm not a professional fitter and depending on the carpet it can be quite tricky to get it to fit right.

[jeffspen]

I need to redo our stair carpeting, the cat has ripped out the top step and the bottom step.

To be fair, it wasn't laid properly in the first place.