Buying new carpet and underlay online & arranging own fitting

[SmokyMountains]

So i've just had a carpet quote for 4 rooms, works out about £600 per room...and then I pay the carpet fitter independently in cash when he does the job....and I pay 29.99 for the carpet and underlay to be delivered to my house.

When I look up similar carpet and underlays on ebay and add in gripper rods and door bars etc that the big firm throws in free, it comes in at about £300 per room with free delivery.

Am I missing something? seems to be a massive difference when all I have to do differently is book the carpet fitter myself rather than let the carpet firm book them?

not sure why it added a link there, I certainly didn't put it in!

I'd love to do this. Anyone know how one finds a carpet fitter that isn't attached to a shop which wants to sell you the carpet?

Just look/ask online. The likes of Carpetright don't employ their own fitters anyway - they are subcontractors who you pay direct once the fitting has been completed.

I did this. Found an independent carpet fitter by asking at the local independent paint shop if they knew any tradesmen - they did. I would find a fitter before you buy the carpet. They might get a better deal and will be able to advise re sizes.

Carpet fitter buys direct from manufacturers but still came to my house with samples. Cost about £20-25 m2 for 80/20 wool carpet, 12mm high density underlay, grippers and fit. Saved about £1k on the price quoted by one of the carpet sheds! He has done a couple of my friends now too. They are out there you just need to seek them out. Do you have a plumber/ painter you could ask, local paper adverts?

Oh and the big firms are not throwing anything in for free - they make money on underlay, gripper rods and door bars. Their quote may not break it all down, but it is not free. You can buy the underlay you'll pay £7.99 retail for online at £2.99 a square metre. We've done it.

The only disadvantage I can see is that is the carpet fitter screws up, does a bad job and ruins your piece of carpet, you can't go back to the carpet shop and insist that it's redone with fresh carpet. It's "at your own risk" iyswim

I've just done this and found the fitter on MyBuilder, of all places. He was local and I knew the shops he fitted for, so I was confident of a good job. He then ended up supplying the exact same carpet but much cheaper - saved about a grand for a much better job. I didn't go for the cheapest quote on MyBuilder as I didn't want to take a risk on ruining the carpet.

I have also just done this for bedrooms - went to (recommended) independent carpet shop, found a carpet I liked and got a quote. I think it was £2,100 including underlay and fitting.

I googled the specific carpet and found it for just over half the price of the price quoted, with the exact same underlay, at a flooring megastore. Sent off for sample to check it was indeed the same! Asked our builder for recommendations for carpet fitter - had to wait a couple of weeks as it wasn't a lucrative job for them, but they did a great job - think I paid £1100 for the carpet and underlay and £100 for the fitter. So a really big saving.

Only one disadvantage of buying carpet separately rather than the fitter bringing the carpet - we had about a week between the carpet being delivered and the fitter coming, during which time we obviously needed to store the carpet. We had 4 separate rolls of carpet, each 4m long (and various widths for the bedrooms) plus about 8 lots of underlay (which look like giant hay bales). Fortunately we could store it, but it was a pain and took up a massive amount of room.

Thanks for all the advice. Good idea to find the fitter first, thanks for that, I have contacted a couple today.

It will work out about £1200 cheaper for us to do four bedrooms ourselves, so it is worth the risk. I have no probs storing the carpet, as I have a few rooms that are still empty as we've only just moved, but I'm wondering about how you take delivery?

Did they just bring them to the front door and you had to lug them inside? Not sure I could manage to get four carpets through the hall by myself so might have to make sure DH is around.

Delivery - unless you're very strong, and depending on how your house is accessed, you will need your H there. We have bifold doors and the delivery man brought them round to the bifold doors on a trolley and then just slid them over the threshold with my help - they are incredbly heavy. As for storage - just think whether your room for storing is at least 4m long.

We are pricing wooden floors at the minute and the last shop were were in said not to pay more than £300 for fitting because that is what they would do it for. It was a nice change for him to not assume we would be using them! Of course DH is now determined to do it himself He'll do anything to save a few quid!

This is a great tip!