Discussion
We are looking at new carpet for our new house next month and although we haven't measured up formally, I estimate 160sqm so 180 with wastage.
As this isn't going to be cheap, I want to try and make it as cost effective as possible but not to the extent we want budget products. So, initially we did the obvious and went to places like Tapi and small local carpet shops and looked at stuff we might like. I suspect we are going to be in the £30/35sq m territory given our ultimate budget, we might be able to go a bit higher but that in itself depends on what we can get the whole price for.
Do I have another option of going direct to a carpet fitter (if I can find one) and asking them to measure up, then buying online direct myself and getting them to fit that, or do they not like me cutting out the middle man? What I want to avoid is going to a high st carpet supplier and paying them to markup the products for what exactly? Store it? I'm struggling to see the benefit of buying that way, or am I missing something?
Surely, if I can find the product I like (I know I want Cloud9 underlay at about £5 a sqm) and the carpet manufacturer, surely it's as simple as buying it and then getting a fitter to quote for fitting and ancillary stuff? Ordering and delivery/storage isn't a problem as I have a 7m wide empty garage.
Has anyone done this and did it actually work out cheaper?
As this isn't going to be cheap, I want to try and make it as cost effective as possible but not to the extent we want budget products. So, initially we did the obvious and went to places like Tapi and small local carpet shops and looked at stuff we might like. I suspect we are going to be in the £30/35sq m territory given our ultimate budget, we might be able to go a bit higher but that in itself depends on what we can get the whole price for.
Do I have another option of going direct to a carpet fitter (if I can find one) and asking them to measure up, then buying online direct myself and getting them to fit that, or do they not like me cutting out the middle man? What I want to avoid is going to a high st carpet supplier and paying them to markup the products for what exactly? Store it? I'm struggling to see the benefit of buying that way, or am I missing something?
Surely, if I can find the product I like (I know I want Cloud9 underlay at about £5 a sqm) and the carpet manufacturer, surely it's as simple as buying it and then getting a fitter to quote for fitting and ancillary stuff? Ordering and delivery/storage isn't a problem as I have a 7m wide empty garage.
Has anyone done this and did it actually work out cheaper?
bennno said:
Id ignore the cloud9 type underlays and find some treadair red, much much better. heavy and thick rubber underlay so much better than foam.
Isn't rubber less cushioning? Happy to learn though as I'd always thought that Cloud9 premium stuff was about the 'best' you could get. All I do know is that I'm not going to scrimp on the underlay this time. We did on our current house and aside from the 3 bedrooms with normal cloud9 in, the rest was cheap and awful.Ref comparing carpets, as Charles said, I've found it pretty near impossible to compare exactly the same carpet across suppliers, so whether it's a local shop or online. Unless you get lucky and find a carpet you like from Axminster (the manafacturer) in 2 stores, it's really hard to the price compare and I bet that's for a good reason.....
I just want to avoid being in a position where someone is charging me £7 a sqm for underlay where I can buy and store it for £4 for exatly the same product which will save me £540 right there on the meterage I'll be looking at.
Edited by TimmyMallett on Tuesday 1st December 14:25
UTH said:
I had Tapi carpets come and measure up my house a week or so ago.
The whole ground floor will be luxury vinyl, with 4 bedrooms upstairs carpeted.
The carpet we want is about £35sq m, and my basic calculations suggest I have around 60sq m in the 4 bedrooms.
The quote they sent me suddenly shot up to about £65 sq m! I am going to call them at some point to get them to explain how it has got so expensive when the carpet itself is £35, but it does seem like buying the carpet, underlay etc myself and simply having someone fit it would be a much more cost effective way to do it!
Seems like even if they're The whole ground floor will be luxury vinyl, with 4 bedrooms upstairs carpeted.
The carpet we want is about £35sq m, and my basic calculations suggest I have around 60sq m in the 4 bedrooms.
The quote they sent me suddenly shot up to about £65 sq m! I am going to call them at some point to get them to explain how it has got so expensive when the carpet itself is £35, but it does seem like buying the carpet, underlay etc myself and simply having someone fit it would be a much more cost effective way to do it!
UTH said:
I should have mentioned, they put fitting as an extra cost outside of the above, and it was reasonable at about £275, but that then makes the jump from £35sq m to £65sq m even more confusing, as that isn't actually including a fitting cost.
Oh, and ANOTHER thing I didn't mention, their quote was based on the grippers currently there holding the current carpet being left and re-used!
I've had someone else come round and measure up, so I'm waiting to see what he thinks he can do in terms of cost, hopefully it'll be a fair whack cheaper and I can just go with him. I might still call Tapi anyway and see what they say when I put it to them that the cost really does seem to be a lot higher than I would have thought.
Anywhere that doesn't give me transparency on costs gets no money from me. I'm happy to pay for a good job though. Ask them to clarify why that increase of £30 a sqm is made of? Some will be underlay obs but really good stuff is only £5/6 a m.Oh, and ANOTHER thing I didn't mention, their quote was based on the grippers currently there holding the current carpet being left and re-used!
I've had someone else come round and measure up, so I'm waiting to see what he thinks he can do in terms of cost, hopefully it'll be a fair whack cheaper and I can just go with him. I might still call Tapi anyway and see what they say when I put it to them that the cost really does seem to be a lot higher than I would have thought.
Google suggests door bars and gripper are peanuts (£5 a door bar and £50 for 150m of decent gripper)
Trustmeimadoctor said:
Great service from these guys for the last few Ive bought https://www.onlinecarpets.co.uk/
When I say I've 'googled something', so far I've just used them, so that's a good start 
UTH said:
Yeah exactly what I thought, buying that stuff myself would cost very little, so again can't justify the jump in costs here
The quote doesn't really break down the amounts of carpet required per room either, they've just put 5m or 4m against a room. So that's pretty vague isn't it.
It is, but it all dependent on the most efficient use of a 4 or 5m roll and the total length they estimate. Bottom line is that any place you go to, you'll need to get someone to measure up for you and they calculate the requirement in total that includes wastage. I'd definitely get 3 quotes in first to see what meterage they all claim you'll need and see how that varies.The quote doesn't really break down the amounts of carpet required per room either, they've just put 5m or 4m against a room. So that's pretty vague isn't it.
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