Carpet question in light of New Year sales ....

[al]

Just been down to Paul Simon's to check out the sales as we need some new carpets. Not replaced ours before so a little out of my depth. Do the following prices seem good and the materials sensible for the application:

Underlay - £7.99 /m2 Fitting - £3.00 /m2

Bedroom is 7.5 m2 Lounge is 34.5 m2 Hall is 5.2 m2 Landing is 1.7 m2 Stairs join them ... ;)

Total about 50 m2 I think ... dunno how to measure stairs. From his calculations based on my drawings he converted (very badly!) to yards and then back to meters and came up with 65 m2 ... which is a bit more than my calculations, but then they'll come and measure up anyway if I go ahead with this.

Based on his 65 m2 and taking the living room as 35 m2, he reckoned on £1500 total for a wool carpet in the living room and a nylon, tufted, woven backed carpet for the rest with medium quality underlay and some spike strips (as the stairs and landing are currently not carpeted). The nylon carpets are at 75% off currently (£5.97 /m2) and the wool ones varied quite a bit, but were more expensive (I think £10 /m2 for the standard ones, but some really expensive ones (about £40 /m2 originally) were down to about £20 /m2 and the quote was based on them).

How does this all sound? Any help appreciated :o)

a

[John Rumm]

Expensive...

Just ordered some from

3.59/sq m for Clound 9 Cirrus underlay. Last time I had a carpet fitted IIRC, the price was something like 30 per room, or 45 for stairs (i.e. flat rate not per sq meter).

That is much harder to call unless you know exactly what you are getting and are hence able to compare like for like.

[N. Thornton]

ouch

100% Wool carpets are not recommended by the way, 70/30 is much better wearing. It has to do with static generation: wool generates static of one polarity, synthetics of the other polarity. By mixing the 2, the carpet doesnt zap itself to pieces, and lasts longer.

NT

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Since carpet comes in only certain widths, there will always be some waste

- unless you're very lucky.

[al]

Interesting ... perhaps you could help explain the appropriate application of each thickness/quality level. What would you recommend for stairs, landing & hall? Same for bedroom? Perhaps a better one for the lounge as it's a better carpet there too? Any guidance appreciated!

a

[John Rumm]

There is a fair amount of helpfull information on the site actually. These two pages I found quite handy:

went for the Cloud 9 Cirrus (9mm thick) version. That will be used for landing and stairs, plus two bedrooms.

[Lobster]

Do you lay the carpet yourself or are you able to find someone locally who will fit carpet without supplying it?

David

[John Rumm]

I will probably get it laid by fitters from the shop where I buy the carpet - just onto "existing" underlay and grippers (which I will fit myself the day before!).

While I have fitted carpets myself a few times, it is not a job I like or do that well, so probably better to outsource it!

[al]

I'm in the same boat ... except I've never tried it before. On the topic of grippers - are the existing ones normally good enough for 2nd hand use? Thought they'd be virtually free, but they want to charge about £150 if new strips are laid down all around!

Also, what's the easiest way to lift the current carpet? In work I have a tile-lifting tool that sticks some spikes into the carpet in opposing directions and locks ... therefore allowing you to lift. Is this the type of tool you'd need to un-hook your existing carpet from the grippers? Is it easy to damage the grippers?

With underlay - do you tape joins or just lay it as is, side by side?

a

[al]

My worry with the stairs was that if it were too thick, it may be difficult to get the carpet to "bend" tight into the corners. Come to think of it ... how does it work on stairs anyway? I presume the underlay comes as far as the gripper and stops? Does that mean you have 10 pieces of underlay up your stairs that you hope stays in place while you cover it with a carpet?

Also, would you go for a thicker one for the lounge or is 9mm pretty standard for domestic use? Don't want to go overboard ....

a

[Andrew Gabriel]

Yes, they don't wear out. Make sure they are still well attached. Also, they are usually made of wood which rots in about 5 seconds if it has ever got wet.

Use a pair of pointed pliers to dig into the corner and lift it from there. Unless the carpet was recently laid, it will probably have stretched a little and will easily lift off the grippers.

IME, laid side by side, and stapled to the floor every 12" along each edge.

Another tip -- if you have a rubber backed carpet which has left rubber stuck to the floor, a flat edged garden spade is probably the easiest way to get it off.

Yet another tip -- if you have some complicated shapes to carpet, such as winders on a staircase, use the old carpet as a pattern to cut out new carpet the right shape.

[John Rumm]

Keep the existing ones. If you need more then you can add them yourself (i bought a "box" of gripper at the same time as the underlay (going in newly constructed rooms), was about 35 quid for 150 meters of the stuff.

(hence I expect I will have 70m ledt over at the end if anyone is interested!)

Pair of pliers to grab a bit of pile. Once you have an edge free it is easy.

With ordinary rooms I just leave it unfixed. On stairs I staple it since it is only in small sections.

[John Rumm]

I watched carefully last time I had some stairs carpeted. You have one gripper on the back of the tread, and another at the base of the riser. The underlay is cut into a section to cover the tread and then flop over the front and down the riser to the next gripper. They then staple it in place

With stair carpets I notice they also fix it in sections, with one section only doing at most three steps. The joins being hidden in the internal corner between tread and riser.

Last time I got underlay (prior to this one) it was for (the old) landing and stairs. So I bought a decent crumb rubber one so as to wear well and also keep the foot fall noise down. The 9mm stuff I have just gos looks to be similar or better, so I expect I would be quite happy with that in most rooms.

(much of the underlay you get is of the "waffle" or "crumb rubber" types, these are often specified in weight rather than thickness. Hence it is not easy to compare size for size with the Cloud 9 stuff)

[al]

Not looking to start the project until late Feb or March at earliest ... so if you're anywhere near London name a price ;)

a

[al]

I'll give that a go .. damned if I'm going to pay £40-50 for them to take my carpets up if that's all it takes!

With reference to fitting underlay - what if it's on a concrete floor (ie. you can't staple it down)? Is there a particular glue to use?

a

[Lobster]

My fitters used a combination of masonry nails and 'no more nails' gunk (didn't see what sort it was); ie, glued, then nailed down to hold them in place while the glue set.

David

[John Rumm]

There is no real need to fix the underlay itself, just the gripper rods.

I think on the discount carpet underlay site they suggest that as a solution as well. i.e. when fitting grippers to a solid floor, most pro fitters just use the ordinary grippers designed for wood floors, but pull the nails out and glue them instead (rather than buy special grippers with masonry nails)

[John Rumm]

SE Essex, so not too far.... how does 15 quid sound?

[al]

Sounds a distinct possibility! When are you finished your project?

a

[John Rumm]

I shall probably get the bulk of the grippers down in the next week or so. That will leave one room to do later, but I can always pull enough spare strips out of the box to do that.