We want to replace the manky green carpet in the lounge, but can’t decide between another carpet or wooden floor. We’re likely to go for something middle of the range (so not cheap and nasty, but also not luxury). We’ll also replace the carpet on the stairs and landing with carpet at the same time because the stairs are off the lounge and have the same manky carpet.

I appreciate that the biggest expense is materials and the cost of carpet / wooden flooring varies massively, but now much should I expect to pay for installation and extras (underlay, adhesive etc)? Which one is likely to be more expensive to install? Thanks.

It really depends on what level of laminate you go for and what laminate underlay you go for.

You would probably find the difference between a cheap laminate and underlay compared to an expensive laminate and underlay is more than the difference between a good carpet and a rubbish carpet/underlay.

If you intend to get someone to fit laminate for you it’s also quite a labour intensive job so adds to the cost a lot compared to fitting a carpet.

The laminate will normally last longer as a return on investment though.

Most discount carpet suppliers round here charge £40-60 per room for fitting, bit more for stairs. Usually two blokes take well under an hour per room. Wooden flooring of any description is usually priced per metre, but will be in the hundreds unless you have a square, flat room with skirtings off, dimensions an exact multiple of the board length. Needs to be expensive as it’s a fiddly, time consuming job needing a bit of experience and patience. For carpet, buy good quality underlay from somewhere like carpetunderlayshop.co.uk and re-use the grippers you have.

Fit laminate (or wooden) flooring yourself
With patience it’s a pretty easy job with minimal tools needed, I laid wooden oak flooring in our old place 15mx4m in a day easy (using a sticky backed underlay on concrete floor, not nails) and have just done the laminate in our new dining room in about 4 hours

I wouldn’t attempt to lay a carpet myself though but I would do all the prep work, fitting grippers etc