Wife ordered 3 carpets from a local supplier and they sent someone down
to measure up. 2 carpets were for bedrooms and the other one was for
hall, stairs and landing. They verbaly told me that they wanted clean
and empty rooms. I accepted that as an empty room without grippers,
which were put down by me as a DIYer

I took up the carpets and removed the gripper strips that I had fitted
to one bedroom and all the ones that had been (in my opinion) badly
fitted on the stairs. The ground floor is bitumin and doesn't take nails
very well. When I took up the carpet, the gripper stips came up with it.
And they were in the wrong place due to me fitting laminate floors over
the years.

When I prepped the first bedroom, I took up the carpet and grippers, as
I was not sure I had put them in the right place. Fitters arrived and
found that they had the wrong carpet in the van and had to go back and
get the right one. His mate, in the mean time, fitted grippers and
underlay and when the right carpet came back, they laid it in rapid
style. I was happy with the job.

Same happened with the second bedroom carpet and I was happy with the job.

Now comes the problem.

A new pair of fitters arrived Monday morning, never having worked for
the carpet showroom and they were told not to take any grippers. They
arived to find none down and went out to buy some, came back and glued
them down to the floor, after removing the hold down nails and said they
would come back later in the week to fit the carpet. I thought that they
were very very good at their job.

Friday they arived back with the carpet and started to fit it. They
mentioned a 45-00 charge for the grippers and that they would have to
get it off my wife before they left. (Wife was the customer and out at
work at the time)

I explained to the carpet fitters, that if they had not laid the carpet,
that they would have found themselves locked in the house until it was
laid. (By this time, 95% of the carpet was laid though.

What right has a carpet estimater got to say that grippers in a room are
servicable for a new and heavier carpet? Especially as they claim to
offer free fitting and underlay (which was crap stuff.

We are disputing the cost of the grippers against the fact that they
offer free fitting.

Can you really fit a stair carpet without grippers?
It was the carpet fitters that decided that they wanted grippers for the
stairs. Can you imagine fitting a carpet to the stairs without grippers?

I think that the estimator came to look at the job and thought that the
grippers were up to the job. When I took the carpet up, they were not.

Dave