Carpet is one of the most popular flooring materials out there. While it’s not really designed to be used all throughout the house, it can be used in some rooms where it will provide you with a lot of benefits. We’ll talk more about those benefits later on.
You’re reading this article because you want to get free carpet installation and repair quotes. We have a free service that can help you do just that, but we’re encouraging you to spend a few minutes to read through this article. This will give you a better understanding that will help you appreciate the quotes even better.
On this page:
- Benefits of Carpeting
- Cons of Carpeting
- Carpet Materials
- How to Install Carpet
- DIY versus Professional Carpet Installation
- Factors Affecting the Cost of Carpet Installation Quotes
- Types of Carpet Repair
- Factors Affecting the Cost of Carpet Repair Quotes
- Installation Cost
- Getting Quotes from Competing Carpeting Companies Near You
First, we’ll talk about the benefits of carpeting. This can help you decide whether it’s worth paying for or not. Basically, you’ll understand these benefits, look at the quotes, and decide for yourself whether these benefits are worth paying for.
A lot of people want instant information when it comes to the price. It doesn’t work that way. This is because there are several factors affecting the cost of carpet installation quotes. There are also several factors affecting the cost of carpet repair quotes. These have to be considered by contractors before they can give you a quote.
Did you know that there are several carpet materials? We believe that this is important information that you should know so you can make an informed decision.
Ultimately, you want to know the cost. We’ll talk about the cost of installation, repair, cleaning and stretching. This will be just estimates but don’t worry because we’ll show you our free service that will help you get more accurate quotes. As a bonus, this free service of ours will help you get the best prices as it encourages competing contractors to send their best quotes.
Benefits of Carpeting
These benefits make it a top choice of homeowners:
- It’s affordable.
Yes, it’s affordable especially when compared to other materials. This is because it’s generally easier to install so you can save on installation cost. While there are more expensive carpeting options, there are options that can fit just about any budget.
- There are a lot of styles to choose from.
It really gives you versatility. Do you want something simple for your room? There’s a design for that. Do you want something elegant for your living room? There’s plenty to choose from. Do you want something that’s easy on the eyes? That’s not a problem.
With how affordable it is when compared to other flooring materials, changing styles every now and then is possible.
- It’s warm and comfortable.
It improves the insulation of a room. This is especially true with thicker varieties. This can help prevent the loss of heat in a home. This helps you save on energy costs. More importantly, this can help improve the comfort in your room.
Speaking of comfort, it’s also more comfortable to step on. This is especially true when compared with hard surfaces like hardwood.
- It’s quiet.
This is the reason why it’s popularly used for bedrooms. It mutes your footsteps so you don’t have to wake your significant other up if you have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
- It helps prevent slippage.
Other types like hardwood can be slippery. This can be a problem if you have kids, pets and elderly in your home. Carpets create friction in between your feet and the flooring. This can help prevent slippage.
In the event of a slippage, the soft carpet can provide a bit of cushion.
- It can help improve the quality of air inside your home.
It will naturally absorb dust and dirt that would otherwise stay in the air. Just make sure that you clean the carpeting regularly to get rid of the trapped dust and dirt.
- Maintenance is easy.
All it needs is a bit of regular vacuuming. Clean spills as soon as it happens. Have your carpet cleaned professionally every now and then. That’s about it.
Maintain it well and it will last you a very long time.
Cons of Carpeting
It’s not perfect just like all flooring materials. It can cause an allergic reaction if you don’t maintain it regularly. The trapped dust and dirt can do that. In addition, it doesn’t last as long as other flooring materials like hardwood that can even outlast you. But you can use this to your advantage. It’s generally affordable so you can afford to replace them every now and then to give your home a much-needed change in appearance.
Carpet Materials
Here are your options:
- Wool
This is a popular choice among homeowners looking for a luxurious carpeting material. Highly-renewable, it’s considered to be an eco-friendly option. It can also help humidify your home better. It’s also the logical choice near a fireplace because it’s considered to be more fire-resistant than other materials.
- Acrylic
If you want the look and feel of wool but you don’t have the budget for it, you can go for acrylic. In fact, it can be seen as a better option since it doesn’t create static unlike wool that does. Its question mark lacks in its lack of durability, but it can be a good option for low-traffic areas.
- Nylon
This is the top choice of a lot of homeowners. It’s considered to be the most popular choice. It’s an all-around winner with benefits that match its price tag. It’s durable and doesn’t require a lot of maintenance.
- Polyethylene Terephthalate
Homeowners love its wide availability of colors and textures. It’s also the logical choice of households that require minimal allergens because of its non-allergenic properties. It’s also an eco-friendly choice because most manufacturers recycle bottle caps to make it.
- Olefin
Olefin is another popular choice. In fact, most experts rank it second to nylon when it comes to popularity. It’s another strong material. It’s so strong that it’s also used for artificial fields for sports. This is obviously a good choice for high-traffic areas.
- Polyester
This is a good choice if you want a luxurious feel but you don’t want to pay for wool.
- Blends
It’s a mixture of olefin and nylon. It’s known to be resistant but can be spotty if stained.
How to Install Carpet
Some of you may be thinking of doing the installation yourself. Here’s a general step-by-step guide on how to do it to give you an idea that this is something that should be done by a professional:
- Measure the room.
This is very important because you wouldn’t want to make an extra trip to Lowe’s or Home Depot because you didn’t buy enough carpeting. Worse, you wouldn’t want to end up with a lot of extra carpeting because that’s a waste of money.
Do a measurement of the room’s longest walls. Get the width and the length and multiply them. Divide the product by 9 and you should get the square yards. This should be the measurement but make sure to buy an extra 10% to cover for irregular rooms and errors.
- Make sure that the subfloor is clean.
You also can’t skip this step because it’s important that the carpeting adheres to the subfloor well. It’s not going to do that if it’s full of dust and dirt. You’d end up with an irregular installation.
- Take out the doors.
This is to make the installation easier. Installing around them can be a challenge so you’re basically taking out the challenge.
- Set up the tackless strips.
First, you have to make sure that you have the right size. It comes in a wide variety of sizes. Measure the length of the walls to know how long you need the strips to be. You can use heavy snips to cut them to size. Install them in place half an inch from the wall. If installing over concrete, use epoxy adhesive instead. Masonry tacks will also do.
Make sure not to install across a doorway or threshold. It can cause a painful accident.
- Roll out and staple the pads.
Roll them out perpendicularly to how you plan on installing the pads. Use a staple gun to secure the pads close to the tackless strips.
Then, secure the pad’s seams using the staple gun. Make sure that the staples are alternated. You should also make sure that the pieces are butted together snugly. You can do this by stretching the padding.
- Trim the padding.
Use your hands to feel the pad so you can pinpoint where the tackless strip is. This is where you’re going to use a utility knife to trim the padding so you can expose the tacks.
- Take the carpet outside for proper notching and trimming.
Make sure that you have the measurement of the longest point of the room. Add 3 inches to this measurement. Once the carpet is outside, notch both sides of its back with the measurement followed.
Then, lay out the carpeting with its backside exposed to expose the notches. Trace a chalk from one notch to the other. Cut this chalk line. Go back inside once done.
- Lay out the carpeting inside the room.
Make sure that lay it out in a straight manner. Trim the excess but make sure to leave more or less 3 inches next to the room’s walls. If needed, use extra carpeting to fill out the room.
There’ll be seams so make sure that you glue them. Use a seaming tape and seaming iron.
- Attach the carpet.
Use a knee kicker to attach the carpeting at the tackles strips starting with one end. Use a wall trimmer and stair tool to cut off the excess. You should also use a power stretcher and binder bar.
As you can see, there are a lot of steps involved. It’s not just a matter of laying out the carpeting. There are also specialized tools and equipment. This is why it’s better to hire a professional.
DIY versus Professional Carpet Installation
Done right, you can save some money if you do the installation yourself. That’s where the problem lies. How confident are you that you can do it right? You’re not a professional installer, and a professional with years of experience generally will do a better job than the casual DIYer.
You could end up spending more money if you’re not really that experienced and you insist on doing it DIY. First of all, you need to buy or rent the equipment needed. That costs money. But the bigger risk is when you start doing the project and you end up doing a bad job that you’d hire a professional to fix it. You’d end up spending more money than what you would have spent if you just trusted a professional in the first place.
In addition, you’d end up wasting the carpet. As you can see, proper measurements have to be done. You could end up wasting several square feet of carpeting or worse, the whole stretch.
Basically, you’re hiring a professional for professional results. If you do it DIY, you can only expect DIY-level results. After all if you can consistently put out professional results, this is something that you’d be doing full time.
Factors Affecting the Cost of Carpet Installation Quotes
A lot of homeowners become surprised when they see the carpet installation quotes. This is because they’re not familiar with the factors affecting the cost of carpet installation quotes. Knowing what these factors are can help you appreciate these quotes better. It can also help you get a better understanding that can eventually help you make the right choice.
Here are the factors:
- Pre-installation work.
You can’t expect the installers to arrive and just install the carpeting. There’s pre-installation work to be done and this requires time, effort and money on the part of the installer. This is why additional charges will be made.
For starters, they’ll take a look at your subfloor to see if they need to be replaced. Some carpets are also hard to remove so this will be a factor if you’re replacing your existing carpeting.
- The shape of the room.
Most rooms are not a perfect square. The rooms in your home probably have edges and angles so the installation will be more complicated. This is especially true if there are round edges.
You also have to consider the stairs. The installer would have to work around it so expect to pay more if there are stairs. This is especially true if you want carpeting on the stairs as well.
- How many rooms?
Let’s say that there’s 200 square feet of flooring that require carpeting. If it’s just one room, you can expect to pay lower as compared to 4 smaller 50 square foot rooms.
- Type of carpet.
Some carpets are more complicated to install than others. This is why they’ll be more expensive to install.
Types of Carpet Repair
Here are the different types of carpet repair that professionals are called upon to fix:
- Cleaning
This can be as simple as vacuuming a dusty carpet to something more complicated as professional cleaning.
- Re-stretching
You’re basically giving the carpeting a facelift. This repair service takes out wrinkles, bumps and loose areas. In addition to the aesthetic benefits, this service can actually prolong the life of the carpet.
- Patching
This is done for small damages like burns and stains. What the professional does is they cut out the damaged area and hot glues a piece of a similar carpet. No one will notice the replacement if this is done right.
Patching is not needed for smaller burn damages. They can simply cut off the burnt ends. The same thing applies to loose fibers that can be cut.
- Color restoration
Some materials can fade especially if exposed to direct sunlight. Some contractors specialize on restoring the color of the carpets to bring back their old luster.
- Water damage
This can be minor to really major. Minor spills are usually not that big of a problem, but water damage due to flooding requires emergency flood response.
Factors Affecting the Cost of Carpet Repair Quotes
There are also factors affecting the cost of carpet repair quotes. Here are some of them:
- Type of damage.
For example, stain removal is generally cheaper than water damage caused by flooding.
- Type of material.
More expensive materials will probably cost more to repair than the cheaper ones. This is because special care is needed to repair them.
- Extent of damage.
Removing water damage caused by wine that you spilled 15 minutes ago will be cheaper than removing water damage caused by a flood that happened last week.
- Accessibility.
Is it easy to access? Is it complicated to work on? This will be a factor.
- Tools and materials needed for the repair.
What are the tools and materials needed for the repair? Their cost of use will also be factored in.
Installation Cost
As mentioned, there are several factors to be taken into consideration for the installation. If we’re going to base it on the national average, you can expect to pay around $9.50 cost per square foot for the installation. With the average size around 10 by 14 feet, you can expect to pay around $1,300 for the complete installation.
Carpet Repair Cost
As you can see from the list above, there are several repair tasks so it’s understandable that the cost varies. If we’re going to base it on the national average, you can expect to pay around $250. Of course, it can be higher or lower depending on the factors listed above.
Carpet Cleaning Cost
You can expect to pay up to $1 per square foot for a professional cleaner. This will obviously be higher for more sensitive carpeting.
Carpet Stretching Cost
You can expect to pay around $175 for this task. Major factor to consider is how big the room is.
Carpet Patching Cost
Each patch costs around $150.
Carpet Color Restoration Cost
If your carpet looks dull, you can expect to pay around $325 for an average-sized room.
Carpet Stain Removal Cost
This costs around $150. The severity of the stain is the major consideration.
Getting Quotes from Competing Carpeting Companies Near You
A lot of companies would charge you a lot of money and you can fall victim to this enterprising strategy if you’re not careful. This is not just with carpeting companies. All types of flooring contractors and other contractors will try to earn as much as they can with every job and it starts with them giving an expensive quote. If you sign up, then they earn higher than they should have. You can’t blame them for doing this because they’re running a business.
However, this doesn’t mean that you should be a willing participant. Why pay more when you can pay less? Why give them the power to earn as much money as they can from you when you can get the power back and save as much money as you can?
No, we’re not talking about doing the project DIY. We’re talking about getting leverage.
What you need to do is to get competing quotes from competing carpeting companies near me. Get in touch with the best ones in your area and ask them to send you their best quote. Make sure to let them know that you’re shopping around for the best deal. This basically tells them that they need to send you their best quote or else, you’ll take your business elsewhere.
This is what we’re recommending to homeowners reading our tips and articles. We also made it easier for you to get free carpet installation and repair quotes. All you need to do is to complete the form on the site with the details asked. Make sure that you provide accurate details. Send the form and the best carpet installation and repair companies nearest you will receive your details.
The best thing about this free service is they’ll receive your details with the understanding that they’re competing with other companies and that they’ll also be receiving your details. They know that if they want to be considered, they have to send their best quote. You can receive around 4 of the best quotes using this free service so try it today!