[Closed] Fitting your own carpet

It's easy enough... but also VERY easy to get wrong ! Don't ask me how i know this !

Doing a proper job will take time, how much is your time worth?

With the right tools, skills and experience it's a piece of piss.

If you don't have these, then get a man who does.
You only get one go at doing it right which mostly comprises of a hundred opportunities to get it wrong.

Carpet fitters don't actually charge that much.

Like most DIY things - easy to do, takes time to learn to do well.

The person you pay will have done thousands of carpet jobs and know all the tricks and have all the experience to get it just right. You have never done one, so you have none of this experience.

I fitted carpet in our caravan. Lots of edges to do so I learned a lot as I went along about judging cuts and so on. Wouldn't want to learn on my own living room though.

Funnily enough, I have a couple of mates who do this for a living...

I dunno, easy square room, proper knives (you know you need a prawper knife for cutting carpet don't you?), a fair following wind, I reckon it can be done by a competent DIyer. Big room, window bays, doors - I'd probably leave it to someone who does it all the time.

You could probably do the hardboading (if you're going to floorboards, not needed if concrete or chipboard/ply) and cutting in the underlay yourself and just give someone a few quid to drop in and fit the carpet.

All this said, carpet fitters generally make their money on materials, not labour - so they get gripperrods, underlay, threshold strips etc for very little and sell them on at a profit, so if you're buying the carpet yourself, and doing all the hardboarding, underlay and gripperrods yourself, a fitter will want more than the normal £/sqm rate. I'd say it's worth it for a nice tight fit. If you **** up a cut in a woven carpet, you can't really undo it.

If you're doing the gripperrods, do it with some decent gloves. They shred the hands of the uninitiated! 😀

EDIT: Buy the best underlay you can afford.

How much is the carpet?

How much is the fitting?

Even a cheap knee kicker will cost you £25.

A proper job makes a massive difference. Pay sommeone.

I have 2x stairs and landings to do before long. I'll be paying someone!

Wise words I once heard.

[i]A bad carpet fitter can make an expensive carpet look shite,
A good carpet fitter can make a cheap carpet look decent.[/i]

Or words to that effect.

If you don't have these, then get a man who does.

sounds sensible, for a bit of extra cost of the whole, why wouldn't you?

over the years have done a lot of diy and along with plastering ceilings this is a job I'm happy to pay an expert to do - the only way to get good at it is to practise - once you've done a couple you'll realise you'll need to do a lot more to make it feel easy

We had the hall stairs landing and bedroom done last year. We paid the fitter £150. Well worth it.

The principle is simple.

If you really want to try I would first recommend you get a kicker, lift the carpet in the area you expect to replace and have a go at re-laying it. All the cuts are there and the carpet should fit fine. on your first few attempts even doing this will not be so great. You can get seemingly different tensions in the carpet in different points in the room (or at least I can achieve this). You can then decide it is going to be quicker and easier to pay someone for the final job but will have learned something new 🙂

Also think about how much you are spending on the carpet and how long you expect them to last. When you look at the overall cost especially if the fitters take away the old stuff it may not bee too bad.

I've done it myself, but years ago and I had a kicker - I was a maintenance tech in a hotel and a kicker was left behind after a few rooms were refitted so it went in our tool store. It was only a temporary carpet so didn't matter that much, it looked fine. Wouldn't bother doing it now though unless it was a dirt cheap carpet.

My Dad is one of those dads that can do EVERYTHING DIY wise. He's fitted carpet for me twice, both times they've been not upto scratch and for that basis alone I will always pay to have carpet fitted!

TBH I'd prefer to get a man in but am struggling to get recommendations from pals...also it's good wool carpet so I don't mind the spend, emptying 2 rooms at once will be a PITA.

Any ideas in Edinburgh?

I can do most DIY stuff, platerting included. Can't fit carpet for s**t, it looks so easy, but it's one of those things that has to be perfect.

Time to pay the man.

Carpet in a cupboard or vinyl in a kitchen is fine to do it yourself but a large room or stairs then get the professionals in, it's not only hard graft, there's a good chance you'll make a hash of it or give yourself a nasty cut.

TBH I'd prefer to get a man in but am struggling to get recommendations from pals.

Use the one the shop recommends.

I bought some carpet to do our daughters bedroom as it was only small thinking "it can't be that hard" 😆

After lots of head scratching and not even knowing where to start I gave up and rolled the new one out on the patio, put the old one on top, drew round it and cut it out 😳

Definitely pay someone to do it 😆

Done it once with a knee kicker and once with a carpet stretcher. Will never pick up a knee kicker again..ever. evil things.
Unless it's a tiny room and a cheap piece of carpet, I'm calling the local carpet install for the 50quid a room install.

I have 2x stairs and landings to do before long. I'll be paying someone!

I know a really good fitter, reasonable too.

I did one after spilling a litre of varnish over our dining room carpet. Luckily the carpet was knackered already, and the fitting went fine. Just take your time 🙂

Laying a carpet is very much like making love to a beautiful woman, etc.

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As people have said, pay someone. its not worth the hassle.

I'm pretty handy at most things. I built this place from scratch and did everything myself. Walls, floor, ceilings, plumbing, wiring, doors, windows, kitchen, tiling, plastering, furniture, stairs... you get the picture. I paid a man to do 1 job and one job only and that was to lay the carpet in our bedroom. All the other rooms have tiles or wooden boards.

I've done it, buggered if i'll do it again. It's worth paying someone just to see how quick and easy they do it. It's almost worth doing one yourself just so you can appreciate how easy and quick they make it.

Again, I pretty much do everything myself. Just turning the stairs in our house and Re plastering. I'll not be fitting the carpets!

The local shop have subbies and they ask £25 per room if grippers are down for underlay and carpet. Not even worth finding my knife and kicker out for that.

Don;t cut the protective plastic wrap off with the curved carpet knife you bought to make fitting easier.

The really really really sharp one, the one that is so sharp, that maybe you didn't notice that it can slice through not only plastic, but two layers of carpet. Now it was cheap carpet, to do a back bedroom, but still,

Al, I recently had a carpet fitted ant the bloke did a great job...any I'm fussy! Will dig out his number when I get a chance. Can't remember his name though.