Coal burn on a Carpet - How to repair/remove

Cake cutter. You don't cut it with the cake cutter, you use it as a template.
Find a cake cutter(for example, a square 60mmx60mm). Flatten the area of the burn that needs cutting out. Place the cutter over it and cut round the cutter with a stanley to remove the square.
Place the cutter over the new carpet(don't squash this piece). Don't cut round it. Cut the piece 50mm wider all round. With your cutter in the centre, remove the carpeting(tuft/pile only) leaving its backing intact.
You should end up with a 60mmx60mm island of carpet(still attached) in the centre of a 160mmx160mm backing piece.
Best if you can lift the old carpet,lashings of glue(evostic or summat) on the 50mm backing square and stick it to the back of the old carpet, press it down well, work the tufts over each other and leave it to dry.

Mr. HandyAndy - Really

 

Won't that leave a raised area around the hole, due to the thickness of backing material?

 

How large is that mark, Bond?

If you decide to go the 'patching' route, I'd have thought the 'same size' patch would be the best method. IF you have access to a 'cake cutter' as Mr Ha says, I think I'd be inclined to use a round one, and cut the same size each time; on the damaged carpet, I'd cut using a 9mm bladed craft knife around the inside of the template. On the spare piece of carpet, cut around the outside.

A couple more details: when you place the 'biscuit cutter' (or whatever) on damaged carpet, press it down reasonably firmly and then use a thin screwdriver to work the pile around the squashed edge to pull it to the outside of the cutter. On the spare piece of carpet, pull any squashed pile to the inside.

Also, make sure you note the pile direction of both carpets, so you replace the patch facing the correct way.

The above is pure guesswork, mind...

Before resorting to that, however, I reckon it must be worth trying to 'hack' away at the melted bit of pile, to break up the fibres to make it like 'pile' again. See if you can scrape the ends of the damaged pile to release it. Perhaps a stiff wire brush could do this too.

Don't forget it will likely be less noticeable than you fear - you know it's there, visitors won't

 

It'll depend on the backing, but it should be taken in by the lovely thick foam underlay.

And yes, the idea of flattening the old carpet is to spread the pile(and so in effect be cutting a smaller section), and not to spread the new bit, so generally getting a tad larger new bit for the old hole.

You really still need some thing larger than the hole under the carpet for sticking things(you can make that as large as you like).

Mr. HandyAndy - Really

 

I've done this before, all I did was place new piece of carpet over the old damage piece, with a really sharp knife cut through both pieces this way the top piece is exactly the same size as the bottom piece, remove bottom piece and replace with top piece using a bit of glue to keep it in place.

 

Bond, is the carpet made from artificial materials - have the fibres 'melted'?

Either way, I doubt there's any magic ingredients that'll bring it back to life -you just need to look clesely at it, see how the fibres are affected, and tackle it accordingly.

I did something similar to our own front-room carpet - dropper the bludy iron on it when I was (er, my wife was) 'roning.

Left a neat flat 'gothic arch' shape in the loop pile. I basically gave it a good scrubbing with a very stiff brush, but had to take care as our carpet doesn't have tufted pile, but looped, so I couldn't change that too much by scraping too hard.

You have 'tufts'? You've got to judge this for yourself, but I'd have thought that doing something like grabbing small amounts in long-nosed pliers, half-way down their 'stems' and then wire-brushing the top melted tips might help.

But, really, if it's melted, there's no magic solution you can simply pour on to fix it.


There must be dedicated carpet-layers/ flooring forums out there where you can get better advice - y'know, ones even more sad than this one...

 

Speaking for myself, like...