Talk to your retailer about how the carpet will be installed. Good fitting and laying are essential to get maximum wear out of the carpet. Your retailer should double check measurements and the amount of carpet required. The measuring should take into account economy of cutting, minimizing cross joins and seams and the lay of the pile.

The seams should run the length of an area with the heaviest traffic moving along them rather than across them. Where possible the seams should run up to the window to avoid light striking across them. Room carpet should start with the full width in doorways and part width fill-outs placed on the far wall. The joins in doorways should be along the line of the shut door.

Where possible, the carpet pile should lay towards a main entrance. If you are carpeting stairs, the pile should sweep downstairs. An expert fitter will leave an extra length of carpet tucked behind at the bottom or top of a flight of stairs. That way the carpet can be re-positioned in time to avoid wear at the edges of the steps. It may be difficult to do this with a thick pile carpet.

There are several ways of laying carpet. The usual and best method for most situations is tackless installation, or smooth-edge. The carpet is held in place by angled spikes facing up from a strip of wood. This piece of wood is nailed, screwed or glued to the floor, parallel to the wall. The underlay is butted up to the wood strip and stapled or fixed to the floor with adhesive.

A further method of laying carpet is to stick it down. Manufacturers of carpet with attached underlay may recommend it be stuck down over the whole floor in heavy traffic areas. Sticking down around the room edges may be enough in lightly used areas such as bedrooms. Where traffic is super hard or where someone uses a wheelchair, experts advise sticking a carpet directly to the floor, without underlay. Special care needs to be taken to choose suitable carpet types but the money saved on underlay can help offset any extra cost in the carpeting. Only recommended adhesives should be used for the job and the floor has to be correctly prepared and the surface smooth and free from rising damp.

Normally there won’t be any problems with the fitting and laying of your new carpet. But if there is something you’re not happy about, ask your retailer for an opinion.