I'm a complete carpet novice - please share your wisdom

[PigeonsInFlight]

DH and I have never bought carpet before, we seriously haven't got a clue how to go about it

Where's the best place to look? Do we need to go to some sort of carpet warehouse / superstore place? Can these places fit the carpet too?

We want something neutral coloured but not too light and preferably natural material. Not expensive, but not dirt cheap either so mid range I guess. Any recommendations?

It's for the stairs / landing and our bedroom. Any ideas roughly how much this would cost including fitting?

Oh and do we need underlay as well?

[PigeonsInFlight]

Wow TiggyR you really know your stuff! Thanks everyone for your advice.

We will definitely need underlay and gripper rods because the carpet we ripped out had neither believe or not A landlord owned this house before we bought it, and it looks like he did everything on the cheap!

So we'll avoid carpet warehouse places and look local. Will check out John Lewis too, hadn't thought of them.

The natural sisal is beautiful and was what we were thinking of, but as we have a 2 yo and a cat it doesn't sound like the best idea so you've probably saved us some money there. We'll look at wool mixes. Thanks!

[DukesOfTripHazard]

Cormar Avebury is what I'm planning. It's a nice tight loop. More interesting than a twist I think. Although it's 100% wool, so I might look for an 80/20 or even 50/50. Some good tips here.

[TiggyR]

The other thing is that the huge superstores are so busy they have loads of sub-contractors fitting for them and the standard of work varies hugely and can be a bit . A good independent retailer will usually keep a couple of excellent fitters employed full-time and they have a much closer eye on the quality of the work because they rely on repeat trade, and reputation through word of mouth.

[Fizzylemonade]

Thank you TiggyR, that was really informative. We always go with an independent carpet shop.

We also always get cloud 9 underlay equivalent as cloud 9 is expensive and everyone has ripped it off now.

[NoseyNooNoo]

We'll be buying carpets soon hopefully - this is so useful so thank you!

[CMOTdibbler]

Having just been through replacing the carpet on the stairs/landing/our bedroom, DH spent quite a bit of time comparing costs of the various places. He concluded that the carpet warehouse places are a rip off.

We went with a small local place who came round with all the samples, recommended various ones for what we needed, and fitted it. The all in cost for a good quality 80:20 carpet, a good underlay, fitting and as it turned out, gripper rods as ours were a bit naff when they looked was 1k

[TiggyR]

Any carpet is only ever as good as its underlay. Buying cheap underlay or keeping old flattened underlay is a false economy.

The trendy textured waffle-weave type carpets can flatten very quickly in high traffic areas if you buy them too cheaply, and they tend to be 100% wool, which can be tough to keep clean. They do look nice though!

A decent all round timeless classic is the 80:20 wool twist, or a berber. (with flecks) Looks plain and boring but that's no bad thing, as it means it's more versatile in the long term. 40oz is quite thin, 50oz is adequate, 60oz is thicker, (and a denser pile) and therefore better. But if you've got great underlay you can afford to risk thinner carpet!

The higher the wool content, the nicer it will feel, but the harder it will be to maintain/keep clean.

If you are looking for a neutral colour, remember it always looks lighter when it's down that you think it will. So don't be tempted to go for a very pale shade.

Natural sisal looks beautiful and is incredibly hard wearing, but is expensive/complicated to fit, and an absolute pig if you spill anything on it, or have wet muddy shoes on it. Would be disasterous with small DCs.

Almost always, the existing gripper rod is fine, don't get conned into replacing it - they charge a fortune even though it's just scrappy bits of wood. The only exception is if the spikes on the existing rod are too long/short for the thickness of the new carpet. Too short and they won't grip, too long and you'll feel them through it - not good!

My best tip would be to remember that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Equally, there is no such thing as free fitting! They just build the cost into the square meterage of the carpet, so you are paying more for the carpet than you should be. The danger with this is that it fools you into thinking it is a better quality carpet than it really is.

Also, these superstores that do permanent sales (50% off certains lines at any given time) are a con. They mark the prices right up (way beyond a fair price for the true value of the carpet) for a few days, then mark them back down to a fair price, and tell you it's a half price sale.

They also say that you'll not find the same carpet cheaper, but that's because you won't find the same carpet. They have the big manufacters make stuff just for them, under a different name, so you can never do a direct comparison with another shop.

It's infuriating because they may have as many as ten or twenty carpets which are all basically the of comparable quality/type/weight at any one time, all sold for completely different prices depending on whatever dodgy offer they are touting that week. It makes it impossible to evaluate the true quality of one carpet against another. (you may have gathered I'm not a fan of these shops!)

I would recommend you look at either:

A good small independent retailer

John Lewis (never rip you off, always an honest pice, good quality products, excellent service.)

Look in superstores for good quality room size remnants, buy a bargain, and get a local freelance fitter from the yellow pages/local ads to supply underlay and fit.

[86Pinkle]

You will most likely need new underlay unless the stuff underneath your current carpet is ok. I guess your best bet is to go round the big stores to see what you like and the price range - they will normally fit as well as probably more expensive than if you got someone in privately.

Also shop around online normally find they are cheaper online.