The bottom of baseboard in my house is installed 1 inch higher then the floor. The old carpet was thick and tucked into the opening just fine. The thickness of the new carpet is not as thick and I am afraid there will be a gap. My question is will the floor need to be shimmed between the tack board and the wall to assure I will not have a gap to the bottom of baseboard.

 

Don,

The base should rest on the carpet with no gap. Raising the tackless or ramping a perimeter around the walls may cause too much flexing of the carpet and you might end up with wrinkles. Ramping has its place, but it should be used sparingly.

You can remove the base and reset it lower. Or, you can remove the base and install a different base that is tall enough to reach as high as the old base, yet rest on the carpet. Or, you can add a base shoe to the bottom of the existing base after the carpet is laid (it will have to be tall enough to get a nail to bite into the old base).

I've never seen a carpet that required a 1" off the floor installation, but it may have been installed after the carpet. Most base is only about 3/8" off the floor (scrap lumber is used to shim it until it's nailed).

Good luck and let us know what you decided to do.

Jim
JMFloors