monrae fordi wrote:
We have a small bedroom in a 1936 terraced house in north London. we have
decided to go for a new fitted carpet with a natural material underlay. (not
rubber underlay, which we suspect might deteriorate after ten or fifteen
years or so).

The wooden flooring has gaps pretty much all over up to roughly 5 cm where
the boards have shrunk over the years. with a few places with some shortish
strips up
to 1 cm wide, where the wood has been damaged at some point, probably we
guess before
laying them down.

We thought we would go for the most basic carpet from john Lewis with a
Hessian backing. It's about £20 sq metre. (we know the rubber back underlay
deteriorate because the carpet we pulled up and threw out was like a mass of
decayed bread crumbs underneath). John Lewis's felt underlay is £4.45 sq
metre, their basic carpet is £20 a square metre and the fitting charge is
£4.65 a square metre, since I don't think I could fit it myself.

Does all this sound a reasonable choice? And what please is it best to do
about the gaps between the floor boards especially the larger ones? Since I
would like to sort out the gaps in my own time before the carpet actually
arrives. Thanks for any advice.


if the gaps are 5mm they probably wont matter after the carpet is
installed. A 5cm gap would be about 2" wide and would need to be fixed.


1 cm gap might be a problem .

A fix I have seen done is to use a router and guide strip to route a
groove in the existing flooring and insert a new piece. You cut about
1/3 the flooring depth.

A more common method is to use an underlayment plywood nailed to the
flooring.

The prices you have quoted seem very high , but I have only ever
purchased really cheap carpet . Get a couple of quotes and you
will soon tell if you are getting fair prices.