Is £27psm expensive for carpet?

[CityDweller]

Just got a quote for carpeting 4 bedrooms and a hall and I'm at the cost - £4K! The bulk of cost is the actual carpet, which is £27 per square metre. Is that expensive for carpet? Or the going rate? I'm clueless - just went to recommended local indie carpet shop and picked out one I liked! I think it was 100% wool...

Not sure whether quote is so huge due to fact that I've chosen an expensive carpet or just cos a lot is needed. Fitting costs are pricey too, but they have to rip up existing floor (cork) first so that makes it more labour intensive.

Yep, that's expensive, they start at £2.99...I mean even I'd not buy the £2.99 stuff as it is rubbish, but I've never paid more than £8 in my life, lol

I've always paid around 15. Do you want the same in all rooms?

That's a how long is a piece of string question. Yes you can buy carpet much more cheaply but you can't buy good carpet much cheaper. For 100% wool, I'd say that's towards the bottom end.

If you want to know if this particular retailer is expensive for this particular carpet, Google it.

Yup, same in all rooms. Hmm - back to drawing board. Or at least, back to shop to see if they have something more reasonably priced.

We paid about £35 for wool, £30 for decent 'plastic'.

Do you mean google the price Jump? Or reviews of the shop?
This shop doesn't have its prices online...

Depends on the carpet. But I've never paid that much. Cheap carpet is a false economy so don't ho too far the other way.

Google the carpet to find out if it's available cheaper elsewhere

I think it is expensive, about £10 ish I would pay, have you checked out the underlay price - there are few different types they might have tried to sneak the list expensive one in. Also can't you carpet over the cork? Why do they want to pull it up? So they can sell you top of the range underlay? Or if it does need taking up - do it yourselves or get a handyman type person - probably cheaper.

I spent yesterday trawling carpet shops - the ones I looked at varied from £4.99 to £65.99 so, it's a bit of a 'how long is a piece of string' question.

Compare final prices too, as some shops will draw you in with a low price of carpet then bump up the price of the underlay, or will say "free fitting" but you pay more for gripper and door rods, etc.

Decide if you need new underlay or not (good underlay makes a real difference but if it's a rarely used bedroom, it might be feasible to put down on top of the old). Think about the footfall - stairs, for example take a lot more traffic than a bedroom. Think about if people are going to be sitting there looking at it (as you would in a living room), or just pass through (in a hallway or porch).

I agree with Trigger and tbh wool carpet at £27 is"cheap". You'd probably be better going for a good acrylic or acrylic mix carpet than a cheap wool one. Also, don't scrimp on the underlay - that will give any carpet a more luxurious feel and make it last longer.

Cork floor is a mess - missing bits etc. He did say we could put carpet on top, but that it wouldn't grip as well as the cork isn't a 'fixed' base. Ultimately our choice though and I was of attitude that it's better to do it well first time out than to have carpet poorly fitted.

Just looked it up and found same carpet for £2 more psm online. So doesn't look like shop is hiking up cost there. Underlay is £5psm...

I think the price is okay for a wool carpet, but it isn't necessary to spend that kind of money on bedroom carpets because they tend not to get anything like the wear in other areas of a house. For hall, stairs and landing 80:20 wool:synthetic is the hardest wearing.

Ours was £79 per sq m so seems cheap to me! Agree it's all a huge range of prices...

I'm looking at a Cormar carpet for £14.99 psqm on Burts Vinyl Flooring. It's a wool one and we'll go for a semi decent underlay to help it out a bit. I've no idea if it's a good carpet or not :(

Carpet's one of those things where you can pay any price, but it is not an exceptionally high price.

Like a pp, I choose 80:20 wool:synthetic rather than 100% wool, it wears better. We have Brinton's carpets in most rooms which are similarly priced & are wearing well.

Cormar carpet is fantastic.

Thanks everyone. I'll pop back in to see if they have an 80:20 I like. Although this one was by far the one we liked the most in our brief trip to shop (toddler was having a meltdown at time, so I wasn't totally focused)

Would it be worth waiting a month or two and looking if the price drops in the January sales?

The most we've ever paid is £90 per sq m for an Axminster, but on average we've spent around £35-40 per sq m, so that seems quite reasonable to me. Have to admit we haven't bought fitted carpet for a good few years though (unless you include stupidly expensive Roger Oates ) probably in about 2007........