Just had a quote for replacing our knackered stair carpet – £550. Its only about 16 steps to a landing 180 degree turn, 5 more steps to a landing 2m by 1m. Carpet is standard beige woollen stuff with reasonable underlay. But £550 that's, like, almost a bike…………

It's 'cos fitting stairs is a pain in the arse.
Then you get to the landing, and there's more doorways than anywhere else in the house.
That's why it costs more to get fitted.

SB

reasonable price

that sounds like a cheap carpet…

better to spend more, since the labour is the same

That's expensive, paid £120 for a reasonable synthetic last week, including fitting. £80 for the carpet, £40 fitting. Carpet was £5/m2 so even at £20 per m it should only be £250 ish plus fitting. Buy your own underlay separately (ebay or http://www.carpet-underlay-shop.co.uk) and save a wad of cash over what the shop charges.

Yes, maybe, but you'll be lucky if that £120 carpet lasts much more than 3 years. Stair carpet gets more hammer than just about any other area. In our current house the previous owner had fitted something probably a bit better than that not that long before we bought the house. I'd guess IRS 3-4 years old now and it's ****. The expensive stuff we put in our last house still looked nearly new after 5 years.

Cheap carpet is false economy and FFS DO NOT go to Carpet Right. Seriously. You have been warned.

I put in cheaper since it's a buy to let house, expecting to replace due to abuse rather than wear. Mt point was that even with £20 /m2 carpet he should be able to do a lot better on price with a bit more legwork. Carpet shops overcharge on underlay, grippers and plates. Buy these separately, and fir them yourself, as I'm assuming you'll be taking the old carpet out a couple of days in advance to do the glossing before new carpet arrives anyway?

OK then so you bought your carpet cheap and got the grippers and underlay of tinterweb fitted them your self
and then got a fitter round to fit the carpet what then would you say was a fair price to pay this fitter for his half a days work .

By The way I am a flooring fitter and I bet I dont earn owt like the majority of the folks on here per hr

I paid the fitter £40 cash. They (fitter and lad, possibly trainee, possibly just labour). Took them about an hour and a half: stairs, 90 deg turn half landing, small landing. All grippers and underlay in place, door plates in too. I'm very happy to pay a skilled person to do a skilled job, but paying the skilled man the same rate to do the unskilled part of the job isn't something my budget allows for. I'll do the graft and call the skills in where they're needed.

Fair enough what about traveling to and from your house

I've just had a quote for stairs + landing carpet and underlay (inc gripper rods etc) – came out at around £375 inc fitting – from Toons nr Burton on trent.

We could have gone for a more expensive carpet but we are selling the house next year so it just needs to look good for potential buyers

Rodger Oats – that's a bike and left kidney.

On Friday i had my hall, landing, cloakroom, stairs and lounge done (with decent underlay) for £1050 – fitting was included (£125) and the 3 guys did it all in bang on an hour.

How long your carpet lasts depends on how you treat it, not always on the quality. Walk oil into a new carpet and it'll be ruined. My old carpet was 4 years old but i ruined it by getting it filthy and the cat chewed some of it. Going to try to treat the new one much better.

Cheap carpet is false economy and FFS DO NOT go to Carpet Right. Seriously. You have been warned.

We carpeted our flat with bargain carpet from Carpet Right – I think it was under £300 a room including fitting. It was as good as new when we sold it after about 3 years. We've just had a bedroom, stairs and living room done in Berber carpet for under £750 including underlay and grippers . The fitter reckoned we'd see a good 5 years+ out of it – all we want given we're going to be extending and it's all coming up again in 2 or 3 years time. Not sure about elsewhere in the UK but we've never had a problem with Carpet Right or their subcontracted fitters – the latest one had 20+ years experience and we'll be using him directly when we fit out the loft hopefully sometime next year.

We've just ordered carpet for stairs and landing and that's £600 with a bit of discount,so £550 doesn't sound too bad.

This is exactly the reason I always take my shoes off when coming into the house, exactly why I'd make sure the doors fit right and exactly why I don't do mucky stuff in the house – good carpets are damned expensive.

Cheap carpet is false economy and FFS DO NOT go to Carpet Right. Seriously. You have been warned.

Have to agree – I will NEVER use Carpet Right again. I could recount the whole sorry tale, but the swear filter would collapse and I'd need to take a day off calm down.

<wanders off to think happy thoughts….>

There's a local place to us that does a great job with carpets. We were recommended them by someone who has used them for yrs.

We had our bedroom done for about £300 incl. fitting & new underlay – the mid-range stuff. Bedrooms about 14' x 12' I guess and it still looks new after a couple of yrs.
Our house is currently on the market and we wanted something cheap & cheerful to make a better first impression so we've just had the hall, stairs and landing done. He didn't reckon we needed new underlay, so we kept the old stuff down & it cost us £270 for the lot. As long as it stays nice & new looking for the time it takes to sell it, I am not too bothered.

Find your local small indie flooring shop. Have a chat with them and tell them what sort of colour and type you are after. If you are not overly fussed on time and not uber-concerned on colour you might do really well. I've done this in 2 towns previously and had great success with stairs and smaller room carpets. It gives the shop a known outlet for ends of rolls and side cuts from commercial jobs and means they can spread work out. Looks after the carpet version of the LBS as well.

I'm having 2 living rooms, dining room, landing, hallway, 3 bedrooms (although one is very small) and 2 flights of stairs carpeted next week. All for £2,150. including underlay and fitting.

However the guy who is doing it was recomened to me by a mate who is a carpet wholesaler.

From what they both said, some modern synthetics are better than wool blends, but not much cheaper. Cheap synthetics are cr@p. They recommended going for a wool blend. There are different ratings 30,40,50, 70 etc and for domestic use they said for 40 was by far good enough, but we went for a 50.

Underlay is considerably cheaper off the net than shops. However if your getting a fitter in, let them fit gripper rods, they are quite particular where they go, and can alter how well the carpet fits.

thats expesnive. get the underlay seperate and dont use the shops fitter. the price will drop!

reasonable synthetic

Oxymoronic

Carpet Right or their subcontracted fitters

That's the biggest part of the problem. It's a lottery with the fitters. Anyone can be a Carpet Right fitter…..
MrPP used to work for a comamy that sold and maintained a customer service/complaints handing database. Carpet Right were a standing joke in that firm apparently…… 😕
Theit carpet is no cheaper than a small local shop IME (We looked and priced it up, but never bothered) and the little local shops give a better service.

Getting Living room, top and bottom landings, stairs and 3 bedrooms done.
60 ounce m/2 80% wool carpet. 10mm underlay all through, and all door bars.

£820 fitted – that's the trade price for the carpet, no vat, free underlay, free labour.

Sometimes helps to be in the building trade 🙂

It all depends on size,shape & how many doors there are off the hall,stairs & landing as to how much it will cost to carpet them.Saying I got mine done for X amount means jack really.

Stair carpet. Slippery, dirty, cost a lot, and wear out fast. – A bit like my last set of brake pads then.

I think I'll carry on without one.

just put real wood down, look after it and it'll see you out