Any flooring fitters for advice?

[andysdinousaur]

I ordered some carpet and vinyl. One last sept and one last October.
Paid half of materials and a fitting fee. The other half was due after fitting.
It's a large regional company who I have used many many times before.
They have told me that due to the current climate that production is very slow and my items still aren't in stock.
Do any carpet fitters know if it is really taking 5+ months for flooring to be manufactured at the moment?
Thanks!

@andysdinousaur it depends on what you have ordered but possibly. My partner works in the hardwood flooring trade which is massively impacted by Brexit. They have shipping containers of incoming orders stuck at ports in Europe and hauliers who will no longer deliver to the UK. In addition if the source product is coming from somewhere like China then you have the delays caused by Covid so it's a perfect storm really. The other issue that his company has is that they are so busy the fitters were booked up into March before Christmas and now it's April / May so if the delivery is late is has a massive knock on effect.

I had a brand new polymer floor fitted last week. Two weeks from order to fitting and the delay was because the fitter had other jobs booked.
This morning I placed my order for stairs and hallway carpet and he is fitting it next week.
Both from independent local fitters.

Well, last year I ordered a large amount of carpeting just before 1st lockdown, and had to pay up front, hundreds of pounds.
Then lockdown happened and the store didn't open again until June. Went in and they explained everything was slow, difficulty finding people and lots of flooring and carpeting items were behind as no-one had been working during lockdown. I'm sure it's the same now and it must be worse with the BREXIT effect. From my experience 5+ months is about right.....
I waited several more months and finally got my carpet done. There is a backlog of work due to fitters being off etc., and manufacturers having been locked down.

There are massive hold ups which are being blamed on Covid and Brexit. However it’s hit or miss with what product and shade you are ordering from what I can tell. Our chosen carpet shade isn’t due in for months yet but they had stock of one a shade lighter that we can have next week so we’ve picked that instead. I think a lot of companies are using excuses and not working with people to offer solutions

If you have ordered with a big company like tapi cancel and get a refund and go to a local independent. It will not only be cheaper but they are not tide in to one supplier so have more options to source what you want.

Thanks all. It matches the carpet we already have, which is why we wanted that specific one. They said they've tried a few suppliers and they're all out of stock, so perhaps there are delays everywhere.