Anyone in the carpet trade?

Tahiti

We're looking at reflooring the whole house (possibly in stages due to cost), and we're after any tips for getting value for money. We're thinking laminate for the kitchen and dining room, and tiles for the bathroom, but carpet everywhere else.

Is there any particular sales period I should be aware of for example?

Does it work out cheaper to have the same carpet throughout?

Thanks in advance.

Doozergirl

It probably does work out cheaper to have the same carpet because the carpet salesman will be able to fit all the pieces you need onto the roll of carpet with little wasteage. When you buy carpet it isn't as simple as needing a square meterage because you don't want cuts in your carpet, you need a whole piece. You'll always end up buying more than you need but the more you buy, the more likely you are to have spare bits that can do your stairs etc.

eg. We have a huge bay in our living room which we did have a cut in to save some money but there's still wasteage which we will use for our stairs.

In fct, if you use enough to warrant using a full roll of carpet, you should be able to get an additional discount because they won't have your left overs lying around.

I'd never feel afraid to haggle in any carpet shop. Not a lot of point in trying if you haven't decided but once you've found the carpet, offer them a lower price Beware of the underlay in some shops. You can buy cloud 9 for the price of really nasty underlay in some shops - seems to be where they make their margins.

Tahiti

thank you very much.

I've discovered that Carpetright also offer a 10% discount voucher online so that helps a little too.

houseofpat

You may want to look at this thread as it has a lot of useful tips about carpets.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1074703