Carpet & Subfloor Prep in Montgomery, TX

Carpet has largely retreated to the bedrooms in this market, and around Lake Conroe there is a specific reason it should stay there. Houses at Walden, April Sound, and along the water take in moisture constantly — wet swimsuits, dogs shaking off, damp towels — and carpet in a lakeside entry or hallway holds that moisture against the slab where it turns into odor within a season. We install a lot of carpet in this town and we almost always argue for hard surface in the paths that lead to the water.

Where carpet is right — bedrooms, and particularly the upstairs bedrooms in the two-story lake houses — the pad specification matters more here than it does inland. A house that is closed up with the air conditioning off between visits runs high interior humidity, and a standard bonded urethane pad in that environment is a sponge. We spec a moisture-barrier pad as standard on lakefront work rather than as an upsell, because it is the difference between a carpet that survives seasonal occupancy and one that smells by year three.

The historic-district houses raise a different point: over a pier-and-beam floor with an unsealed crawlspace, carpet traps ground moisture rising through the subfloor. In those homes the crawlspace vapor barrier is a prerequisite, not an improvement.