New carpet: how to brief a carpet layer and compare quotes fairly

What carpet laying involves

A proper install starts before the carpet: old floor coverings come up, the subfloor gets checked and smoothed, and smooth-edge strips go around the room perimeter. Underlay is laid and taped, then the carpet is cut, seamed where rooms are wider than a roll, stretched tight with proper tools and trimmed to the edges. Stairs are their own discipline, charged per step and unforgiving of sloppy work.

The stretching is the part DIY attempts miss. Carpet that isn't power-stretched ripples within a year or two, and re-stretching later costs real money. It's a genuine reason this trade exists.

Carpet layers lay carpet; they generally aren't the people for hard flooring. If you're mixing carpet bedrooms with timber or laminate living areas, those are usually separate trades or a flooring company that does both.

Reading the price

Supply-and-install is priced per square metre, and the carpet grade is the biggest lever: budget polyester at the low end, solution-dyed nylon in the middle, wool at the premium end. A single room lands in the hundreds; a typical three-bedroom home sits in the middle thousands; whole-home premium wool runs five figures. Indicative bands — the calculator on this page adjusts for your area and grade.

The comparison trap is inclusions. One quote includes underlay, old carpet removal and disposal; another quietly excludes all three. Before ranking quotes by number, confirm each covers the same list. Underlay quality is worth a question of its own — it's a few dollars per square metre that changes how the carpet feels and how long it lasts.

Choosing the layer (and the carpet)

Carpet laying is an unlicensed trade, so judge on evidence: how long they've been laying, whether they power-stretch as standard, and what their seam work looks like — ask to see a photo of a doorway seam, the spot where quality shows. Retail packages usually come with the store's contracted layers; independent layers can be better value if you've bought carpet elsewhere.

On the carpet itself, match fibre to household: solution-dyed nylon is the sweet spot for kids and pets because the colour goes through the fibre and survives cleaning; wool feels and wears beautifully but costs more and wants more careful maintenance; polyester is fine for low-traffic rooms and budgets.

Mistakes to avoid

Carpet mistakes tend to be quiet ones — nothing fails on day one, but the floor ages faster than it should.

• Comparing quotes without confirming underlay, removal and disposal are in all of them
• Cheaping out on underlay under a good carpet — it's the mattress under the sheet
• Accepting an install without power-stretching; ripples arrive within a couple of years
• Putting stairs in the too-hard basket of a cheap quote — per-step work is where corners get cut
• Choosing carpet colour in store lighting without taking a sample home
• Throwing away the offcuts — keep them for future patch repairs in high-wear spots