Sofbac

[Floorist]

Do any of you ever install any of that awful stuff anymore? I did one job of it and told the store to bid my labor at $100 a yard to do any more. It was never popular around here at all. The one job of it I did, it took 4 of us to carry in a 12 x 20. I normally would have carried in a 12 x 20 of regular carpet by myself. It was hard to seam, hard to trim and hard to stretch.

 

[C.J.]

I hated soft bac the first time I installed it. It is heavier and acts like a berber when stretching it. On the plus side I was able to leave hallways attached to other cuts and flop the hallway through a doorway without trashing door jambs. You do gotta burn your seams a little hotter so the adhesive penetrates the fleece backing. After awhile it became just another carpet to work with.

 

[highup]

The softback I've seen doesn't resemble the original softback of 35 years ago. The fleece is probably 1/3 or 1/4 the density. Give me that, over that waterproof carpet any day.

 

[MSLI]

Brothers had me do a few units in a high end retirement home appx 5 years ago. Used the carpet kart for delivery ( nasty heavy like you said ) and I pre-cut everything before stretching because yes ! It’s impossible to pin and cut with 3” running up the wall.

 

[C.J.]

It’s impossible to pin and cut with 3” running up the wall.

Couldn’t tell you how many jobs I’ve double stripped because of this. Now if you’re in a house where the base is held up off the floor I would trim and tuck the carpet on my set walls then bump it with my kicker and rub it down on the pins. Much easier and you only have to double strip your key stretch points. This is why I never thought twice about a house that has the base held up in the air.

 

[highup]

You guys must still see some olden days Softback.
The stuff I've seen in the past 20+ years is about 75% less pain in the butt.The Softback is about 2/3 less than when first introduced.