Saving on recarpetting

danrv

victor2 said:

plumb1_2 said:

danrv said:

Jonboy_1984 said:

Underlay and grippers are very easy to fit yourself

What about grippers on Thermoplastic tiles/concrete floor? 

Hybrid adhesive and extra small masonry nails 

Or just pay a man £50 to do the job, better than the average homeowner could do, and probably for less than buying a selection of tools and fixings that you have no experience using and will probably never need again. 

I think that’s what I’ll do considering the type of floor. The fitters do this all the time. It’s just the quote was around £450 all in for a 4m x 3.5m front room so was thinking how to save a bit.
Looks like the fitting is the cheapest part.

plumb1_2

Over the last 5 yrs I’ve had 18 houses  fully carpeted, by a local independent company. A lot cheaper than national companies. Trustworthy and take away the off cuts .

ashe

The carpets in Franks, Carpetright etc are generally bought in. They add markup, and they have your eyes out on Underlay, Grippers, Door bars etc and they sub out the fitting so if anything goes wrong, they send you in their direction and you've paid cash. Good luck with that!

By all means go to those stores and see what carpets you like, but photograph the carpet and the style/colour etc. You can then either take it to a smaller store, or just find the carpet yourself online and pay for fitting off a well reviewed installer. 

We went to Tapi - quoted us £1,300 and a price match offer. Went to Franks, found  identical carpet with a different name - was same carpet but they had rebranded it - they said they could do it for £950, but when we looked at their workings they had messed it up and under quoted us. It would have come out in the survey, but by then we'd be down the rabbit hole with them and ultimately have to pay more. 

Googled the carpet which was about £27/sm in the stores, managed to figure out what it was, found it online for about £18/sm

went to an indie store, he worked it out meticulously and suggested another carpet which was practically identical, £1/sm more but it comes in variable widths and as we had an L shaped room this would be cheaper. £870 installed by their in house team , or a bit cheaper if taking the other one as dont need to order a 5M wide width due to our L shape. 

Fitters were great and have much more faith in them for any issues

TAPI has decent reviews but you pay through the nose
Franks carpets probably OK but 2.3 on trustpilot because the fitters are generally the worst going. 

For underlay, you can also save money buying online. all the big stores just rebrand stuff usually. The websites tell you what retailer has and what the product really is

twopenny

I bought cheap for some rooms, did a small one myself and re used underlay - you do what you have to at the time.

I did regret it later. Try and get the good stuff cheaper and a fitter if you're staying. Otherwise make savings and move on in a couple of years.

moneysaver1978

Not much difference in carpet quality - most of them probably came from the same suppliers.

What matters most is the quality of the work from the fitters.

TELLIT01

Unless thermoplastic tiles are very well stuck down they may well pull up when tension is applied to the carpet grippers.

danrv

TELLIT01 said:

Unless thermoplastic tiles are very well stuck down they may well pull up when tension is applied to the carpet grippers.

Yes. Some broke as I was taking up the grippers so I could fit new skirting board. There's gaps in.places but have coated with PVA. 
Maybe could look at carpet tiles or LVT and a large rug instead.

Marvqn1

I've got a Victoria First Impressions carpet, but I'm disappointed with it. After less than a year, the carpet has already shaded a lot and is very light grey in colour on the areas that have been walked on.

I had a look online about carpet shading. It says that shading isn't a manufacturing defect. But if the carpet is patchy looking with an overall unsightly appearance after less than a year, how can that be considered good quality?

Do people find that deep pile carpets always have issues with shading after 6+ months?