Installing just carpet pad? Is that crazy?

[tentaguasu]

Hello all,

Two specific questions:

1. Can I lay down carpet pad and leave it down for months, potentially years before putting carpet on it?

2. Is installing carpet pad (without carpet) something easy for a beginner to do?

Here's the back story.

I have a dedicated home theater room, but am on a really tight budget.
At some point I'm going to carpet the room, but right now that's not economically feasible, yet I'd still like to use the room. Leaving bare cement is not feasible because it makes the room an echo chamber (you can't hear anything, it's terrible).

My idea was to put down carpet pad to at least deaden the echoing and make it a workable theater space.

It gets basically zero foot traffic (and I have a piece of carpet remnant I can lay down where we do walk), so that's not an issue.

Am I missing some reason this would not work? Is this really hard to do? (I know laying carpet is not a beginner's job...)

Thanks!

 

[Floorist]

Not hard to install pad. So I guess it would work.

 

[Nick]

1] No
2]Yes.

 

[DarisMulkin]

Putting things on the walls will stop a lot of echoing. Draperies, pictures, anything to stop sound.

Daris

 

[rugaddict]

i would choose a felt padding----duct tape the seams----cut to fit and save tack strip installation for later-----ps-----ive seen crazy---this aint it

 

[highup]

i would choose a felt padding----duct tape the seams----cut to fit and save tack strip installation for later-----ps-----ive seen crazy---this aint it

I'd second that idea. The felt pad isn't as soft as the standard rebonded foam padding, but I think it would make a better sound deadener in the mean time. Buy some good stuff tho not the cheapest stuff you can find. It's called a synthetic felt pad or rag pad. No foam involved.
If you decide on a foam pad, install it correctly. .... shiny side up. The pad will have a skin of some sort no matter how thin the skin is, the skin side goes up........... it's not a vapor barrier.
If you decide to staple the pad down, keep the staples at least a foot away from the walls so that some day, the carpet installer can fold the pad back to install the tack strip at the correct distance when the time comes.
How large is the room?