Whilst the names may sound similar, a carpenter and a carpet fitter are two completely different professions.
As a professional carpenter myself, it never occurred to me that there would be any confusion. However recently, I have seen multiple people online asking if carpenters lay carpets.
I even saw a post on a popular question and answer site, where someone incorrectly claimed that they do.
Let me be very clear. Whilst carpentry is a very broad profession, with a wide variety of different skills, these have nothing to do with carpet fitting. Carpenters do not lay carpets!
Laying carpets is the job of a carpet fitter. This is a profession that specialises in installing carpet and other types of flooring.
A carpenter will often fit wood flooring, but they never work with carpet. It is simply not part of the carpentry profession.
The only time a carpenter will ever need to work with carpet, is if they are removing it to access floorboards or joists below. When this is necessary, a carpenter will pull back the carpet to access the sub floor below.
Following work, a carpenter (or any other trade for that matter) will be able to replace the carpet and push it back into the grippers. However, this is not a complicated task and even a homeowner with limited DIY knowledge, would be able to do the same.
On the other hand, a carpet fitter will be very experienced at measuring and cutting carpet to fit. This is a very skilled trade; carpet fitters spend several years working as an apprentice to become fully qualified in this profession.
If you need a carpet fitter, you can compare local fitters in your area by clicking here.
Do carpenters lay other flooring?
Whilst a carpenter doesn’t lay carpets, they do often lay other types of flooring. This is because a carpenter specialises in working with wood. As a result, they actually have lots to do with different flooring related jobs. For example:
- Fitting joists – These are the timbers that support the flooring, and these will always be installed by carpenters.
- Installing the sub floor – Whether this is standard floorboards or something like chipboard flooring, this is a job completed by a carpenter.
- Laminate flooring – This can sometimes be done by a specialist flooring company. However, it would definitely be considered a carpentry related job.
- Solid wood flooring – Wood flooring can be a beautiful feature. In order for it to look the part, it needs to be installed by a skilled trades person. Again, whilst there will be specialist flooring companies who only install wood flooring, it is still considered carpentry and a good carpenter will have no problem fitting any kind of solid wood flooring.
As you can see there is a pattern here. All the flooring that a carpenter would install is made from wood. This is what a carpenter specialises in. They are highly skilled at measuring cutting and installing wooden materials.
If you look around your home and see anything made from wood, it is highly likely that it was installed by a carpenter. This includes things like:
- Doors
- Roof timbers
- Floor joists
- Stud partition walls
- Staircases
- Skirting boards and architrave
- Kitchens
- Floorboards and wood flooring
- Etc
It is an extremely varied profession. However, all these jobs, and anything else a carpenter does will have one thing in common. In the majority of cases, it will involve fitting something made from wood.
Despite the jobs above being quite different, many of the skills used are actually very similar.
Conclusion
So there you have it. Carpenters do not lay carpets! Whilst they are multi skilled, they usually work with wood. In some cases, they may also work with other materials such as UPVC. However, they definitely don’t work with carpet.
If you do need carpets fitting, you will need to hire a professional carpet fitter. This is a skilled trade, and a fully trained carpet fitter will be highly skilled at their profession. This will ensure that your carpets are fitted to a high standard.
