Comments on: How to Buy a New Carpet

on 3/9/2009 The problem with Lowes is that they subcontract to meatcutters to do the installwork. Here's an example of their poor quality: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~dgm4d/LowesCarpet/index.html

on 10/4/2007 When you measure your space you must consider the width of the carpet that you are buying and the direction that the carpet will be laid. For instance, if you have a 12' x 15' room and buy carpet with a width of 12', you will waste carpet if you lay the 12' width along the 15' width of the room. In a house with a hallway, you will want to lay the carpet in the same direction as the hallway, and the same way throughout the rest of that floor of the house.

on 9/29/2007 Carpet Measurement - make sure you do your homework on this. We are currently replacing all of our upstairs carpet and have asked a local store to measure for a nice carpet we picked out. I did my own measurements first and did not let them know beforehand what we came up with. My measurements totalled 76.5 yards. The carpet store's measurement was for 113.5 yards. At $27 per yard, you can see a giant ripoff in the making. I've found that you should expect somewhere between 10% and 15% difference from your own calculations (depending on the width of the carpet). But certainly not 32%, as in my situation. Dennis Robbins, Lawrenceville, GA, 9/29*07

on 11/22/2005 I have found many stores will bring you in with a low cost for the carpet but then you get gouged on the padding and the labor. Keep your options open. Don't be scared to buy the carpet at one store, the padding at another, and have a totally different company do the installation. I just bought carpet at Lowes, (much cheaper than other competitors in my area), I bought the padding at Home Depot (it was $246 less than the Lowes Padding), and I hired an installer to do the job from a referral (this saved me $480 in labor over what Lowes would have charged). The total savings from the all-in price Lowes quoted me was $726.

on 11/22/2005 Always check with the flooring store on warranty information and cleaning. So many people void their warranties by using a cleaning product that is not recommended for their particular carpet.

on 11/22/2005 The most important factor in selecting pad cushion is "density." Carpet mills only honor warranties on carpet layed over pad which is 6 lb.(per sq. ft.) or greater. The higher the density, firmer the pad. The thickness should not exceed 1/2 in.