It appears my new house will need total carpet and pad replacement, about 1,500 square feet. Seeing as how this was not in the budget or really expected, I'm looking for economical options.

The local flooring company is coming back about $6/ft installed.

Lowes and HD have free installation, removal, and haul off. Anyone experienced carpet installs with either of these guys? Also, Lowes free installation only applies to their Stainmaster carpet, is that carpet decent?

I know every situation is different, but we had Stainmaster carpet installed by Lowe's in all 4 bedrooms probably about 8 years ago. Since my we're empty nesters, 3 of those bedrooms seldom get used. However we had to have all the carpet restretched once and it needs it again, despite minimal traffic. Have made the decision to get rid of the carpet and go with hard flooring in every room.

So that was my experience with it!

Never done flooring with Lowe's, but they have screwed up every special order I have done with them (3). And these were easy orders.

If you need carpet restretched, it was probably just kicked in and not power stretched.

Stainmaster is fine, but you are paying for a name. The stuff wasn't unique enough to patent, so Dupont put out a HUGE ad campaign in the 80s to make you think it was special. It isn't and it isn't even the most stain resistant on the market. Get a pricing quote from Lowes and call local carpet stores with the name and specs of the carpet and see if they can beat the price.

The best deal you will get on carpet will be with guys that stock a certain type of carpet, which will be a larger retail store. They tend to buy a lot of that kind and get special pricing on it. But you will have much less as far as selection goes.

I used Home Depot in Temple and it turned out fine.

Is this an empty house ?
Or full of furniture ?

Depending on your desire you should be able to get some installed for 2.50-4.00 a ft with 8 lb pad. Lowes and Home Depot have really expensive pad so that is how you get "free" installation.

Just went through a carpet install from HD. Was dreading it based upon all the negative reviews of the installation company for the Austin area, but it went fine. Lifetime warranty on carpet and installation as long as you have it steam cleaned once every 12-16 months.

It's not a forever product for us, but we needed to replace the garbage the previous owner installed before we bought 10 years ago and I didn't want to spend a bunch of money at the time. We used the Platinum Plus brand berber with an 8# pad. FYI, 10% off coupons work for both Lowes and HD on carpet purchases.

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Depending on your desire you should be able to get some installed for 2.50-4.00 a ft with 8 lb pad.

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$4/ft can get you into the cheaper hard woods. Normal 25oz carpet should be significantly cheaper than that.

So what are the important things to look for?

Face weight? Density? Twist? Etc.

Internet is full of info that is all different.

What is the household traffic like ?
Kids ?
Pet's?
How long do you plan to stay in this house?

Don't skimp on the pad. Get at least an 8 lb pad.
Carpet eventually gets dirty and looks nasty over time even if you steam clean it. If you have pets or kids I'm from the school of thought that I would rather buy cheaper carpet and then replace it 8 to 10 years later then spend double the amount up front and have dirty higher quality carpet down the road. Also if you are going to sell in say 5-8 years I would go lower grade and then you can recarpet it again before sellling which will be a nice bonus to potential buyers versus them looking at your house with old carpet in it.

Guitarsoup said:

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Quote:

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Depending on your desire you should be able to get some installed for 2.50-4.00 a ft with 8 lb pad.

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$4/ft can get you into the cheaper hard woods. Normal 25oz carpet should be significantly cheaper than that.

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Like $2.50 a ft?

The wholesale cost of standard 25oz carpet is like $.45-.75/foot.

We had HomeDepot installed our carpet within the last two years and were happy with it. Overall I thought they did a good job, including taking into consideration the floor plan to figure out the least amount of cuts possible (the less number of cuts the less "stiching together" is necessary and less waste, so win-win for homeowner and installers).

There were plenty of options for pads and carpet for us to pick... so we opted for better pads and not as good carpets so it felt softer on our feet. If you don't want to move your own furniture, they can also move your furniture (around) for a cost.