...to think it is worth £30 for someone else to take the carpet up?

[5Foot5]

DH and I disagree on this. He thinks IABU and I think he is being unrealistic. I would be interested in views and suggestions.

We have ordered a new carpet for the lounge and dining room. While talking to the salesman he explained how much it would cost to have it fitted. He then said "I assume you are OK taking up the old carpet?" Now it had never actually occurred to me that we would have to do this (it is ages since we had any new carpet) so I must have looked doubtful. He then said that the carpet fitter could take it up for us but it would cost an extra £30. My reaction was "Fine, we would like that" while DH was "Oh it's OK we can do it ourselves." The salesman then said we could think about it but would have to let them know before the appointment with the fitter was made.

So. £30. We are not rolling in money but we are not hard up either. Also we found the carpet had a discount on it that we were not expecting which means it is coming in at less than we expected. Either way we could afford the £30 no problem.

DH is saying it will be dead easy we can just pull it up before we go to bed the night before. I think he is being over-optimistic because we will have to cut it up to get it out of the house and if we wait until just before bedtime we probably won't be in bed until about 2am.

In any case we will have to move as much furniture as possible out of the room that evening so once we have done that and then pulled up the carpet it will mean downstairs is a bit of a grim place to be. We don't have nice cosy floorboards it is a solid concrete floor. Frankly I just want to hand over the extra £30 and let someone else deal with it.

Who is being unreasonable do you think? Anyone pulled up any carpets lately to share their experiences?

[Turniptwirl]

I had great fun ripping up my friends carpet! She was a little scared of how good I was at it actually! The knife wasn't very good so I just started off the cut with that then ripped the rest of it! Great stress reliever!

[AllBoxedUp]

I recently paid £1 a square metre to have carpets taken up and disposed off and it was worth it. Surprised you have to dispose of it yourself.

[Floopy21]

where are you getting your carpets from 5 foot? Just had a ginormous quote for ours.

[whois]

You still have to dispose of it yourself anyway, new carpet can't go in the same van as old carpet.

I would advise you do it yourself. I didn't, and the guys ripped it up and started laying so quickly I didn't really get a chance to clean properly underneath.

As someone up thread said - take it up with plenty of time and do a good clean and fix any floor boards.

[Merrylegs]

We didn't even have to move our furniture out. The fitters just moved it around the room as they laid the carpet. Was awesome.

[iWantChampagneOnColaBudget]

had ours fitted about 2 months ago, they were going to remove and dispose of our old carpet for £30 which was very reasonable, but as the fitting and carpet for one room was costly enough, we decided to do this ourselves.
while kids were in bed, we emptied the room of sofas, tv stand, etc and took the carpet out, and underlay as well as the grippers at the sides, and gave a quick broom and mop.
when the carpet fitter came to put the new flooring in, he gave another broom over and job was over and done with in 45 mins

[Souredstones]

Yanbu. We practically broke our backs tearing up the entire downstairs hall landing and staircase worth of 20 year old carpet and underlay up.

Shovels were involved

[ratspeaker]

You'll have to move the furniture anyway so why not just lift the carpet.
It may make it seem grim but it's only for one evening.
Have you thought about the disposal of the old carpet?
Check your council's rules and costs
Our council in Edinburgh charge £19.99 for bulky uplift, up to 6 items they usually arrange to come a week or so after you phone them.
Midlothian council give you one free uplift a year after that it's around £20

[CointreauVersial]

I would have said yes, until I read that the £30 doesn't include disposal.

We just replaced DS' s bedroom carpet, and took it up ourselves. The previous stuff was so crappy, there turned out to be no underlay, no gripper, and it was so thin and flimsy the whole lot folded up and fitted neatly into our wheely bin. The entire process took about 40 seconds.

[bugsyburge]

we took all of our upstairs carpets up on Thursday night ready for our new floors to be fitted on Saturday... it look me & Dh less than an hour to do three bedrooms & I'm 5 months pregnant.

you can ask your council to collect it from outside your house so it's super easy

also, to have carpets fitted you will need to move all the furniture anyway so you may aswell go whole hog


spend your 30 quid on cooking a nice meal instead

[meganorks]

I was going to say pay up as I thought that included disposal. But as it doesn't I would say do it yourself andkeep the 30 quid.

[landrover]

You will also have to clear the room before they come,as majority wont move furniture (you might be ok them moving the bed!)

[landrover]

Op have the carpet fitters quoted you for grippers and underlay? If not then leave all, and its really simple job to stanley knife into strips

[RevelsRoulette]

Yup. After reading this, I have realised I probably was.

I can't believe I fell for it They even showed me why the gripper couldn't be used again and I just nodded along.

[WetAugust]

Revels I think you were ripped off. I'vr never heard of grippas being damaged when you take the carpet up.

There's no reason why grippas cannot be reused unless you are replacing existing carpet with foam-backed carpet.

You don't have to remove grippa rods to take up underlay either as the underlay is laid up to (not under) the grippa.

[GoldenGytha]

I am not the handiest person but even I can manage to pull up an old carpet.

Had no choice really, I couldn't afford an extra £30, and there's no one else here to do it, I got the kids to help me take our old living room carpet up, roll it up, put it outside, then the council took it away for me.

I have a stone floor too, and only took minutes to brush and clean it afterwards.

I also laid my carpet in my bedroom using carpet tape (tiny boxroom size)

[valiumredhead]

We've always left the gripper rods too.

[Scarifying]

I would doitmyselfbut I think £30 is a fair price. If you use lots of new blades in a Stanley knife it should be very easy to take up.

You could try lifting a corner and seeing what it's like underneath.

[lollilou]

We took up our huge living room carpet last weekend it was easy BUT our Landlord wanted it back (god knows why it was very old,thin and yukky). The hardest part was moving it out of the house it weighed a ton we managed it in the end with a lot of swearing.
I would take it up yourselves and save the money, cutting it into bits will make it easy. Also it will give you time to wash the skirting boards and hoover.

[VivaLeThrustBadger]

It took me five mins to get our living room carpet up on my own and I'd never done it before.

Get a sharp Stanley knife and cut it into 2 ft strips while its still on the floor (as long as there's no underlay you're keeping). Then its really easy to roll the strips up and remove.

[RevelsRoulette]

Was I ripped off?

[RevelsRoulette]

I tried that last time I had carpet fitted, WetAugust. They said it had to come up because taking up the carpet had damaged it.

[RevelsRoulette]

It's easy to take up, but it's not just a case of ripping it up the night before! You'll need to take it up, remove the gripper, take up the underlay (which depending on the type can be a BITCH!) and clean the floor underneath ready for the new underlay and carpet to be put down.

[WetAugust]

I took mine up by myself - all 26 x 13 feet of it. And took it to the skip - single-handedly.

You just need a Stanley knife and some bin bags.

Leave the grippa rod in place - there is no need to take it up as they'll reuse it when laying the new carpet.

[treas]

I took up the carpet all through out house - it's a doddle no skill required so I'd resent paying extra.