Fitting Day Preparation: Getting Ready for Your Fitter

Clearing the Room

Every item on the floor needs to come off it before the team arrives — the tape measure, gripper and roll of carpet all need a completely clear floor to work with, and a fitter working around furniture is a fitter working slower and less accurately. Small furniture, rugs, plant pots, toys and anything loose should be cleared out of the room entirely if you can manage it.

• ✓Empty wardrobes, cupboards and drawer units if they’re being moved — full furniture is far heavier and harder to shift safely.
• ✓Take down curtains or blinds that hang low enough to catch tools or fitters working near the window.
• ✓Remove or securely fix loose electrical cables and extension leads that cross the floor.
• ✓Clear a path from the front door to the room being fitted, not just the room itself.
• ✓Put pets somewhere safe and away from the work area for the day.

Larger furniture — beds, sofas, wardrobes — is usually handled by the fitting team as part of the job, moved out and back once the carpet’s down. If anything is exceptionally heavy, fragile or awkward to lift (a piano, a heavy glass cabinet), mention it when you book so the team can plan for it properly rather than discovering it on the day.

Doors, Trims & Skirting

A new carpet is sometimes a different thickness to the old one, and it’s common for a door that swung freely before to catch on a thicker pile afterwards. Fitters routinely check every door in the room being carpeted, lift it off its hinges if needed, trim the bottom edge, and rehang it — it’s a standard part of the job rather than an extra.

Door bars and trims

Where carpet meets a different flooring type — a hallway’s hard floor, a kitchen’s vinyl — a door bar (also called a threshold or transition strip) is fitted to protect the carpet edge and stop it fraying at the join. Skirting boards generally don’t need to come off; carpet is tucked neatly beneath the gripper at the skirting line instead, which is part of what gripper rod is designed for.

Checking the Subfloor

Whatever’s underneath the old carpet — floorboards, chipboard, screed or a concrete slab — needs to be sound, flat and dry before new carpet and underlay go down. Old gripper rod left over from a previous fit is usually reused if it’s in good condition, or replaced if it’s damaged, rusted or the wrong size for the new carpet’s backing.

If you know of a squeaky board, a damp patch, or an area that’s previously flooded or leaked, mention it before the day rather than letting the fitter discover it once the old carpet’s up — a subfloor issue found mid-job can mean a delay while it’s put right, whereas flagged in advance it can usually be priced and planned for ahead of time.

Parking & Access

Carpet, underlay and tools all need to get from the van into your home, so easy access genuinely speeds the job up. Where you can, keep a parking space free directly outside or as close as possible on the day, and let us know in advance about anything that could slow access — narrow stairwells, a lift that’s sometimes out of service, restricted residents’ parking, or a property that’s tricky to find.

For flats and communal buildings, check whether you need to book a lift, notify a concierge, or reserve a loading bay — a few minutes sorted in advance saves the fitting team losing time on the day itself, which keeps the job running to the timeframe you were quoted.

What Fitters Do on the Day

The team arrives, protects entry routes and hard flooring they’ll be walking over, then lifts and disposes of the old carpet and underlay if that’s part of the job. Any gripper rod is checked or replaced, the subfloor is given a final look, new underlay goes down first, and the carpet is stretched, trimmed and finished to a proper edge at every skirting, doorway and stair nosing — see our carpet fitting and stair carpet fitting pages for more on how each is finished. Fitters vacuum up and check every room before they leave, so you’re not left dealing with offcuts or fluff.

Aftercare: The First 48 Hours

A freshly fitted carpet is fully walkable straight away — there’s no drying time the way there is with glued flooring — but it does benefit from a settling-in period before it takes its full daily punishment. Avoid dragging heavy furniture back across the pile in the first day or two; lift and place it instead, to stop the fresh fibres from creasing or matting before they’ve had a chance to bed in properly.

A light vacuum after a day or so lifts any loose fluff left from the cutting and trimming process, which is completely normal on a new carpet and settles down within the first few weeks. For ongoing care once the settling-in period is over, our carpet care guide covers vacuuming frequency, stain response and professional cleaning cadence in full.