Shoutout to the $30 knee kicker over the $200 power stretcher for small closets
I used to drag my power stretcher into every closet job because I figured more power meant tighter carpet. Then a guy named Ray who has been installing for 22 years in Bakersfield showed me he does small closets with just a knee kicker and gets the same stretch with way less setup time. I timed it on three closets and saved about 40 minutes total, plus no wall damage and no marred baseboards. Anybody else skip the big tools on tight spaces or am I the only one who was doing it the hard way?
The part about no wall damage surprises me a bit. A knee kicker can absolutely wreck drywall if you slip, especially on a closet that's only 24 inches deep and you can't get your body in there right. I've seen guys punch a hole through the back wall more than once. Ray probably has his knee placement dialed in from all those years, which is the real trick, not the tool itself. How tight are those closets where you're skipping the stretcher, like under 3 feet?