I'm not looking to save every last penny on cheapo carpet, I just want to have three rooms, landing and stairs carpeted properly for a reasonable cost prior to selling the house. Is it just my imagination that the Carpetright stores always seem devoid of customers whenever I pop in to have a look at their stock?
What about Allied Carpets? Or is it better to go to one of the small carpet outlets?
MM
On 23 Nov 2003, Mike Mitchell wrote
Over the years, we've found that our local carpet shops -- we've used a couple of different ones -- worked out at least as cheap if not cheaper than the CarpetRight/Allied sheds. (We've had three or four relatively major carpeting jobs done, and a number of smaller ones.
Get quotes from all of them and see.
I think the quality of the carpets from the sheds is probably OK, but be wary of things like the standard of their underlay and their charges for stuff like grippers, edges and the like. (In our case, that's what wound up killing the competitiveness of their quotes.)
Phone your local Trading Standards office and talk to an officer there.
The TS officer I know has only got bad things to say about large carpet firms (that's a sweeping generalisation if you can excuse the pun).
Mungo
I needed some underlay and called in at my local Carpetright. I asked for enough to cover x sq yards and was informed they only sold it in sq meters. I said - OK give me the equivalent in sq meters. Blank looks from everyone
- finally informed that they were unable to calculate what I needed. Rather than ask to borrow a calculator, I went elsewhere :-)
Ordered a carpet from Allied carpets a couple of years back - "free fitting" etc. I was very busy at the time and failed to examine their charges correctly. When I did, I noticed they were charging 50p per foot for gripper rod + other nonsense !!!! I cancelled the "free fitting", just bought the carpet and got a local guy to fit it - saved a fortune.
I now use a local small company - much better value.
We had ours fitted by Allied IIRC a few years ago. They did a crap job, and I ended up having to tape a strip of carpet on under one of the doors because it was laid short, and the edge was showing when the door was shut.
Most unimpressed.
The only good thing is that specific shop was closed down very shortly afterwards.
I live in Stockport,Cheshire and I have used my local Carpetright store for years.
I can only speak as I find and my view is that their staff are friendly,knowledgable and helpful. The products are good (you get what you pay for..!) and the quotes are certainly competitive.
Over the years I have always had a perfect job done by their carpet fitters and have no complaints about them and would recommend them.
Every one is always talking about cheap,cheap ,cheap. There comes a point where you can pay too little for a job. You can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear and if you buy a cheap carpet or underlay,dont expect it to look like the mutz nuts and last for years..!
In message , tarquinlinbin writes
A friend of mine buys carpet and fitting from Carpetright, but sources the same underlay, grippers etc. elsewhere at about a third of the cost.
e.g. Carpetright top underlay £9 per metre, source in levenshulme, (I think), £3 per metre, (same price as Carpetright cheap underlay).
Like another poster, I was in a hurry to get a room carpeted and went to Allied (even though I *know* of better, smaller places, dammit). "Hmmm, this stuff seems OK, down to 17squid/sqm from an alleged 33 (prolly for one working day in the Outer Hebrides branch, mind). Sat down with droid to price up. Then started the litany
carpet - 17 * about-10-sqm underlay - 4.odd * about-10-sqm grippers - 20? squid fitt The fitting itself was perfectly competent, but then I'd made the easy job totaly easy anyway: the room was a simple rectangle with one radiator, room being redocorated so totally empty of furniture, door off hinges (we have these cunning Scandinavian hinges which have plates which slip out from under their retaining brackets when those are loosened slightly from the frame, so very easy to pop doors off and replace). Total fitting time - about 20 minutes, maybe half an hour total time from van-arrives to van-leaves, including drinking cuppas on the job.
Bottom line - went OK, feel ripped off, they certainly won't get next year's bigger carpet-refit job here!
Skefet
That's something I'd forgotten :-)
The *free* fitting necessitated the fitter coming to my house and presumably bringing the carpet with him - and yet they intended charging me for "delivery" :-))
*Free* fitting ?????
On reflection, I think they charged me substantially more than that - more like 8squid/sqm for their "not-the-crappiest, not-the-finest-in-the-house" grade... grrr!
I think a point worth making here is that most likely the personal return that people in the carpet stores get is largely based upon what they are perceived to sell - it's known as "commission". And after talking quietly with one MFI sales guy not long ago I understand their return is crap even on a fairly significant sale.
Whether it's right or not, those people are going to be inclined to maximise their take-home pay as much as possible - that's the way the system works. And that's a sin that most if not all of us are guilty of - trying to maximise the return from our work.
The price of carpet materials might be set at head office (so that head office can run the marketing campaigns for special offers). But the local manager might have carte-blanche on accessory prices.
I may be wrong, but I thought that CarpetRight (etc) tended not to have their own carpet fitters - but instead outsourced the work to tame local fitters. Those fitters get paid a standard (fairly low) rate for the job.
PoP
Watch out for the scam where they don't charge you for fitting, but ask you to pay £50 direct to the fitter. If they do this, clarify in writing that your contract with the shop is for both the carpet and fitting.
You can end up having the carpet fitted by a bunch of intimidating individuals (I experienced 3 turning up together) who are not identifiable, don't work for CarpetRight, who beg and whine in an attempt to extract more than the £50, and stand over you while you inspect the job, hoping that you will be pressured into making only a cursory check.
David
I had my first carpet fitted last year by Carpetright. We haggled down a good price for the actual carpet and I wasn't too concerned about the cost of underlay/grippers. However the fitters in my opinion let the job down and in the future I'll certainly find my own fitter so that I can choose who does it rather than rely on someone like CarpetRight to subcontract on my behalf.
The Fitters although apparently competent, clean and quick didn't spend much time ensuring that the grippers fixed to the concrete sections where the upstairs fireplaces used to be, consequently the carpet is now loose. It appears that they either cut the carpet to narrow, or didn't stretch it enough as in the other room the carpet lays almost in line with the skirting board rather than being securing pushed under. On the stairs, we were informed that they had to cut each step individually because each stair was slightly different width (it's an old house) which sounded like a cop out to me and some of the steps are a bit 'baggy' after a years use. We were told in the shop and during the initial visit that they'd be able to secretly join the carpets across each doorway (we didn't want door-bars) but when it came down to it the fitter said it would still be visible due to the the angle of the door and in fact the carpet is ribbled around the join because of the uneven floor (so I'll fashion some wooden door bars as I've done downstairs).
All in all, not a bad job that's really worth complaining about now (and trust me, I love complaining :-) ), but certainly not a proffersional finish.
Ant.
Wife popped into carpetright to get a rough price for out stairs/landing/hall carpet. Came back with what seemed a reasonable price.
Went back once we had finished the decorating to get a firm quote...
"Oh its stairs is it? Theres an extra 30 quid for that fitting." "Underlay 8 quid a yard but you really want this one at 12 quid" "Ah. We only have the stain resistant version of that one - didn't we say? Still, its only another 4 quid a yard. Is that ok?"
etc etc
We left. Went to a little place on the highstreet in Cheriton that popped around later that day, measured up and came up with a much better price anyway - no "oh, and just another 15 quid for the jibble" rubbish either.
Did a very good job. Went back last week (a couple of years after the first job) and it is now a betting shop :-(
Gave up trying to get someone interested enough to sell me something. No experience otherwise.
talking of which, anyone recommend a decent carpet place in Cheriton/ Folkestone?
Darren
Went into Carpetright (SALE! 50% off!) an hour ago. The salesman was dealing with a couple of Oap's in front of us. Salesman in the throes of saying :
"And then there's just the twenty pounds service charge"
(Oap's) What's that for?
"It's like an admin charge. We organise the fitters for you, do all the phoning up, make the appointments! You don't have to do any of that"
So we went to a little carpet shop, chose a roll end leaning against the wall £130, fitting (Wednesday), £30 all in!
DG
In message , David Pashley writes
I had a good experience with CarpetRight (apart from bad scheduling, which meant I had to take 2 days off work). They came in with the best price and the (subbie) fitter did such a professional job, I gave him an extra £20.
Letting tradesmen any closer to the front door than the pavement is against my religion, but it was an insurance job. Personally, the job got a thumbs up from yours truly
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