There are many considerations to work through when selecting carpets for your property. Having a consultant does make the job easier when it comes to working out tricky choices like what’s the best investment for the owner, aesthetics of the whole thing, should it be wool, woven? What’s the floor traffic, how much do you need and many more considerations.

It’s a pretty exhausting process - here are a couple of things you need to keep an eye on to get the best value.

It’s sad to say along the way you will find that some of the information received was a little deceptive. Some points below will help you stay on track.

Misleading the weight or grade of carpet can catch the unwary buyer out.

Weight or grade of carpet used in a commercial application is 40 ounce as the standard requires. Substituting only a 20 oz weighted carpet means less cost to the supplier but means a dramatically shorter life for the hotel carpet.

Cheap nasty underlay can ruin any good carpet as it flattens out and is like concrete to walk on. It’s popular to substitute cheaper underlay.

Overstating metres required can catch you out very quickly and add extra unwanted dollars to the bottom line. The hotel generally relies on the carpet measurement of the supplier, consultant, and installer. Would you know if the corridor was 50 metres long or needed 50 metres of carpet? If the corridor was only 46metres then being charged for an extra 4 metres at $200 per metres adds up. If you were doing 25 floors that’s a very quick $20,000 you lost. It happens more often than you think.

You should ask what the measurement is and then have your own people check it.

Its not uncommon to find also a little surprise when those third party people who are helping you, handover the quote have added a couple of metres , after all it was a nice presentation you may not realize what’s going on.

Did you know you are suppose to receive from the supplier a certificate that identifies the carpet in terms of material, weight and fire rating?

You need to check that the carpet is fire rated and get the certificate - if you have a fire in the hotel you could faced with possible non payment of the insurance and possible a negligence charge for not checking by both the insurance company and the asset owner.

Many get bitten with a great price on that imported stuff but it could be underweight and not be fire certified.

Finally read the fine print on your proposal the GST is included on some quotes and sometimes in very small print and not included in others.

That means your purchase will vary by another 10%.

The Kenson Team