Has anyone ordered carpet from Home Depot? What do I need to know?

[Tap]

They are offering free install (haul away/move furniture etc) and the sales person offered free measure right now. I just haven't heard much about what products they sell. One warning I have heard is to be careful about their samples. The samples are sometimes hire-end product than you are ordering.  (for instance if one product comes in different fiber counts, the sample will be the highest count).  

I priced carpet/hard surface flooring (laminate or LVT) at a local flooring store and was shocked at how expensive it was.  I am sure it was premium quality, but the rough estimate for 2200sqft of mixed hard surface/carpet....was $30,000.  Home Depot was $15,000. I don't live in a fancy house. Very much middle of the road and just need to refresh 20year old flooring. 

[HeartString]

1 minute ago, Tap said:

They are offering free install (haul away/move furniture etc) and the sales person offered free measure right now. I just haven't heard much about what products they sell. One warning I have heard is to be careful about their samples. The samples are sometimes hire-end product than you are ordering.  (for instance if one product comes in different fiber counts, the sample will be the highest count).  

I priced carpet/hard surface flooring (laminate or LVT) at a local flooring store and was shocked at how expensive it was.  I am sure it was premium quality, but the rough estimate for 2200sqft of mixed hard surface/carpet....was $30,000.  Home Depot was $15,000. I don't live in a fancy house. Very much middle of the road and just need to refresh 20year old flooring. 

Not Home Depot, but Lowe’s put carpet in our last house, with a similar sale.  It was a good experience and we were happy with it.  There was a separate sample for each thread count option so I felt like we got exactly what we picked out.  

[Pawz4me]

We bought carpet for our sunroom from HD last fall. It's a nice indoor/outdoor type and we're happy with it so far. As far as I can tell the sample we looked it was exactly the same thing that we got. Getting the initial estimate was a super easy and fast process. Getting it installed was a bit of a hassle. Keep in mind this was last fall and all the pandemic issues. The company that was supposed to install it for HD rescheduled twice, once with less than 24 hours' notice. We'd decided that if they didn't show up on the third try we'd ask for our money back. But they did show up and the installation went well.

[GailV]

We did 2 staircases with Home Depot carpet in Feb 2020, so pre-pandemic.  It was exactly what we expected basis the sample.  The process was very straight forward. The price was fantastic.

Also, the samples come in a box with an orange piece of elastic around them and THAT ORANGE STRING IS THE BEST CAT TOY EVER.  We ended up getting 2 boxes of samples (I forget why) so I gave one of the strings to dd, whose cat also loved it.  I'm thinking about ordering more samples just to get more orange-stretchy-string.

[dsmith]

We had Home Depot do our home office and my son’s bedroom. The carpets were the same as the samples and they have held up well going on 8 years now. My mother-in-law decided to use them for the living room a few years ago, and the install was done very well and the carpet is a good quality. We’ll definitely use them for our bedroom when the time comes, hopefully soon!

[TechWife]

6 hours ago, HeartString said:

Not Home Depot, but Lowe’s put carpet in our last house, with a similar sale.  It was a good experience and we were happy with it.  There was a separate sample for each thread count option so I felt like we got exactly what we picked out.  

This was our experience in our last house as well. I would use them again. 

[Ailaena]

They sent one, lone guy to do everything and expected him to have it done in one day which was NOT going to happen. Turns out, he ended up doing a terrible job and they sent somebody out to fix it a couple of months later - as much as they were able to fix it, that is.

Be prepared to wait patiently for the carpet to come in and the installers to call you and then actually install.  We only waited about a month, other people wait longer.

it’s not that I wouldn’t do it again, I just wouldn’t do it if I was in a hurry or trying to seriously impress people with my home.  

[gardenmom5]

My daughter just did a mix of hard/carpet (except the kitchen/dining room. She want's to gut it and start over).  Her biggest frustration were delays from one of the installers. And the other ordered the wrong number of pieces - so it had to be ordered and they had to come back . . . ) She was doing the entire house, so they crammed everything into the garage.

[gardenmom5]

You should probably ask how many installers they send - my dd had at least two or three with each project. - but that might vary by area and how many laborers are available.

[Jean in Newcastle]

We are doing a kitchen remodel, not carpets, but Home Depot contracts out the actual work.  So worker issues etc. would depend on who HD has contracts with in your area.  But we have had no issues with ordering what was in a sample (which included flooring but not carpet) and getting exactly the same product. 

[TechWife]

Installers for Lowe’s are contracted companies. Ours were excellent. 

[Jann in TX]

We've used Home Depot for flooring in our last 2 houses.  We love their 'unlabeled' brand carpet. It us usually in a separate display (like a rotating box).  Fantastic price and very good quality.  We have also used HD for LifeProof vinyl flooring (just had DDs room done in that last week).

EVERYONE is having labor issues-- so install time will vary.

Sometime this fall we will be putting carpet in several rooms of our new house (plus the staircase).  We will use Home Depot.

[sheryl]

Hey Tap,

Clearly I'm NOT understanding the price quotes!  Last year we found carpet from HD and one that was in our price point for a nice dense carpet.  Two bedrooms.  One is a 9x9 and the other 12 x 9 and the price including pad, labor, install, haulaway old and new carpet was around $1300.  I'd have to find receipt but it's very close to that.

Why so much?  Are you carpeting 10,000 sq ft?  We've had ours over a year and it's been good.  Other places/prices were higher for less dense/more inferior carpet. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

29 minutes ago, sheryl said:

Hey Tap,

Clearly I'm NOT understanding the price quotes!  Last year we found carpet from HD and one that was in our price point for a nice dense carpet.  Two bedrooms.  One is a 9x9 and the other 12 x 9 and the price including pad, labor, install, haulaway old and new carpet was around $1300.  I'd have to find receipt but it's very close to that.

Why so much?  Are you carpeting 10,000 sq ft?  We've had ours over a year and it's been good.  Other places/prices were higher for less dense/more inferior carpet. 

She's already said that it is 2200 sq ft.  which is a lot more than your 189 square feet. 

[sheryl]

11 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

She's already said that it is 2200 sq ft.  which is a lot more than your 189 square feet. 

Yes, I understand.  Still high.  I'm assuming Tap is not buying the most expensive per sq ft. and probably not the cheapest either.

[hjffkj]

That quote is almost $6 per square foot if I did the math right. That is crazy expensive for carpet IMHO.

I am actually sitting on freshly installed by Home Depot carpet at the house I'm about to sell. I have nothing but positive things to say about the experience. We did choose an in stock carpet so the install time from scheduling the measurements to today was only ten days.

We saves money by pulling up the carpet and pad ourselves and just hauling it to the dump. That really is an easy task. Plus the rooms were already empty when they got here.

[Jean in Newcastle]

This is a high cost of living area. Don’t  the costs include  removal of old flooring and installation of new and not just the materials?  

[Tap]

To answer everyone in one post:

It is a high cost of living area so we pay a premium for everything here. The quote is for removal , haul away, pad, carpet, new trim, and install (including stair case). Dump fees are per pound here, so it would cost a premium to dump that much material (flooring and some subfloor). Definitely not worth hiring it out myself. 

The bottom floor was a mix of linoleum and carpet. I am changing that to all solid surface with no transition prices. This means parts of the subfloor have to be redone. (Otherwise some rooms will be a slightly different height). That would be really odd in my fairly open floor plan 

I also need to pay someone to lift/replace  the ring on 3 commodes. I also have to pay for product and the installation of the rubber/plastic trim part that goes under cabinets in the kitchen and 3 bathrooms. I am mentally capable of doing it, just not physically due to a back injury.

Since I am using the same carpet on the stairs and bedrooms, it needs to be a mid-high density. Mid-range is $3.50sqft, high is $5-6. Pad adds $1.50. hard surface needs to be higher end and waterproof due to kitchen/baths and dog.

So, roughly $6 to 7sqft and sales tax of 8.9%. Puts me right around $15,000
 

 

[Jean in Newcastle]

Tap, that sounds reasonable for this area. Like you, we went to some local flooring stores and were absolutely shocked at how expensive they were . Home Depot and Lowe’s were so much better in price.