Carpet Installation Do-it-yourself
Just wondering.....Have any of you ever learned to install carpet after you started REI? It seems that one of our big costs is paying someone to install the carpet. Is it that hard to do and does it require many tools to do this yourself?
Thanks.
Well, I am a big time do it yourselfer. Teach a course in it. Did all my rehabs with unskilled laborers who I taught to do everything as we went along.
That said, I don't do my own carpet installations. Not that hard but lots of tools and relatively expensive ones. Unless you are going to do it a lot its not worth the investment. In addition carpet installers work very cheap.
In my neck of the woods, it actually is rather expensive to have carpet laid. (about $10.00 sq yd) I should qualify that statement.
This is pretty much the going rate for places like Home Depot in my area. Without any frills. Obviously, you could find someone cheaper to install your carpet. But I maintain a hard and fast rule. I NEVER...allow someone to install anything, unless I have purchased it from them. No way do I give someone the opportunity to screw up an installation of my materials that I have bought and paid for from another source, particularly expensive items, like carpeting. This business is full of "schmos" that talk a great game, and spend far too much time pounding down "cold ones" at lunchtime, to allow a cheaper price to influence my common sense. The guy that sells me the new windows, is gonna be the guy that installs the new windows. So when a problem pops up with the quality of the work, they aren't getting paid until it's rectified. The cheap carpet layer, working a side job on the weekend, after drinking or smoking or injecting him or herself into oblivion friday night isn't getting my phone calls. Nothing worse, than trying to save a couple bucks, only to realize it will cost you much more in the end. I'm not saying that there aren't some good inexpensive carpet layers out there, but from my experience, there just aren't nearly enough, and that goes for most all of the trades.
Dave
Heather I can't believe that you consider carpet installation one of your biggest costs. Maybe if you are combining the cost of the carpet and the installation instead of looking at them separately. You should be able to get a great carpet installer at $5.00 a square yard. Which in a 1500 sq foot house which is usually about 1200 sq ft of carpet only comes to $670.00 I don't consider $700 a huge expense in a rehab, especially considering the bang for the buck you get with the transfomation of a house with new carpet.
One thing I learned early is to always buy my carpet and pad from a wholesale house and have a separate installer that I can trust. Getting buying your carpet and installation from the same place like Carpet Mill or some other chain assures you that you are paying too much, and you are guaranteeing a non-english crew showing up (where I am anyways).
Those flooring companies have a huge turn-over, and I mean HUGE when it comes to installers, they pay them slave wages and keep the difference for profit, because they pay slave wages they get only new guys, drunks or total hacks to work for them. The cream rises to the top and quits them as soon as possible to make a better living.
Find a good carpet layer and latch on to them. Good ones always use a power stretcher, they heat seal the seems, they understand how to get the most from a roll of carpet and know which ways to put the seams in a room based on window lights hitting the carpet and showing off seams, they know when to do certain things based on the type of carpet you are going to use. They know tricks like using a heavier pad on stairs to double the life of the carpet.
Wow thats pretty rough. I think all investors should have a good handy man on their team. I have one that can do most of the work I can't do myself. Such as laying carpet. Finding someone you trust is key.
I put carpet in my house and I did a decent good considering it was my first time. I bought a carpet kicker from lowes for 100 bucks. saved me a good bit of money would have cost twice as much installed.
Hey,
Where are you guys getting this installers?????? I have always found the installation price to be about $500-$600 for 1200 sq ft of carpet.
Carpet is the second cheapest item, after paint, with the biggest impact on your property. Why would you try to save $200 and screw it up???
The one thing we don't do is install carpet, and we have learned to do about everything else! I have 2 sources that supply plush carpet, pad and installed within 2-3 days for $1/sq ft; while that's going in we can paint the entire exterior, refurbish the kitchen etc. Find out where the apartment complexes or new builders are getting their carpet. One screw up can cost the amount of reg. installers. Seams, direction of nap, allowance for stretch, there's more to it than meets the eye. Pam Matthews
Thanks everyone for your replies. I think that we have just not found the "one" that we need to use for purchasing & installing carpet. Our cost seemed higher than everyone is talking about. I was just trying to reduce the costs, but I guess that carpet installation is not the area to try to reduce. Would you feel any different if it was a low end rental instead of a property that you were going to resell?
Thanks,
Heather
Btw, you can rent all those carpet laying tools the pros use. So, if you really want to save that $600 and you don't mind working on your knees a couple days call the rental places in town until you locate one with the stretcher, knee-kicker, and heat iron. They'll probably sell you the sealing tape, too. Read up on carpet installation -- then have at it.