Buying capets online - pros and cons

lena22

I am looking to carpet an entire house - I got a quote from Carpet Right which including fitting came out at over £2000.

I've looked around online and seen that I can actually get thicker, better quality carpet much cheaper per m2 online and can also source underlay/grippers etc much cheaper as well. I'm having an estimator out from Carpet Right so will be sure on my measurements.

The only thing I'm concerned about is the cutting and fitting as I know Carpet Right cut to size in their warehouse - will it be a problem for fitters having 80 odd m2 of carpet to cut up at my house (the house is empty at the moment and I do have a large living dining room they could use)?

Carpet Right quoted £247 for fitting (living/dining room, 3 beds, stairs, hall and landing) plus a £35 surcharge for stairs - would I be able to get an independent fitter to cut and fit the carpet at a similar price? And is there anything else I should be wary of when buying carpet online?

bryanb

Ask the online supplier to send samples. Remember you'll have to store it between delivery and fitting.
Also well worth getting a decent underlay on line, I lay underlay and grippers myself and get fitter to do the carpet (But he live next door)

Innys

I went to a carpet supplier (just outside London) and chose the carpets I wanted. I got a quote from the supplier, noted down the carpet brand and "model".

I then rang round to get some quotes from warehouses around the country. The local supplier wasn't interested in matching these quotes so I ordered from a warehouse in Huddersfield. I specified the room sizes for each carpet and they cut them to size in their warehouse before delivery to me.

I also ordered the gripper and underlay online and sourced a local carpet fitter to fit the whole lot.

Doing me all this sounds like a lot of effort but I ended up saving over 35% to recarpet a four bedrooms, large lounge, stairs and landing. IMHO, that's a saving not to be sniffed at.

lena22

Sorry forgot to say I already have samples so know I'm happy with the quality/colour etc - the one I'm looking at online is a Kingsmead carpet which i saw in store but thought was out of my price range - but online is actually cheaper than Carpet Right's which doesn't feel nearly as nice.

I've found cloud9 cumulus underlay for £2.95/m2 online whereas Carpet Right's are selling their most basic one for £6.99!

That's a good idea about phoning round warehouses Innys - might have to give that a go. Totally agree it's worth shopping around - it's amazing the mark-up carpet right put on underlay, grippers etc - with just a quick online search can find it all for half the price!

It's just getting the carper cut and fitted that concerns me...

fiesta04

Find a carpet fitter first. Then ask him how he wants the carpet delivered. He should be able to supply underlay and grippers too.

F4

typeractive

Hello,

I'm just about to embark upon this process. Not looked at anything at all yet! Going to Franks Factory flooring and carpet right today hopefully. have an idea of colour I want - which will probably be a wheat/oatmeal/beige neutral throughout the whole house. Though I have no idea what 'quality' carpets to go for.

Rooms to carpet will include
Living room / dining room (with a log burner in this room, so could get messy when cleaning it - I was going to go for wood, but my neighbour said the previous owners had that and they could hear everything through the floor!)
4 bedrooms
Attic staircase,
Hall stairs and landing on first floor (was thinking of going for one of those runners up the stairs)
Downstairs hall will be wood.

Typing all that out just made the whol process very daunting as it's obviously not going to be cheap!! Yikes!

I have scale plans for my house which is really handy, though I would still prefer a rep to come out and measure / give me advice to get started.

typeractive

measuring my plans I reckon it's close to 95msq of carpet I need (plus the 2 staircases - so rounded to 100msq I guess. :eek: