They Never Allied Once
Recommendation added: 05/09/2006 13:11
By: erika26 (YSUK rating +43)erika26 has been thanked 0 times for this contribution
"Allied carpets in Doncaster is the shop which replaced all of our carpets after our disasterous house fire. We chose this particular shop for a number of reasons. The main reason was that we needed to order the carpets before we could actually pay any deposit as the insurance company were taking their time paying up. We did initially go to different suppliers (I won't name them) but we were told that we would need to pay a hefty deposit to secure what we wanted. Now because of the situation we were in we couldn't even afford to put a tenner down let alone a couple of hundred.
We came across Allied Carpets whilst we were just browsing round the York Road Retail Outlet in Doncaster. There was no intention to purchase the carpets from this shop as we assumed that they too would want a big deposit. Whilst looking through the shop a very helpful shop assistant asked whether we needed any help. We told her our situation and she delightfully told us that NO deposit was needed, just a letter from the insurance company stating how much money we were entitled to spend and confirming they would pay the bill at the end. Fabulous! She also told us that we could choose what we wanted there and then and she would put an initial order down for us so long as the insurance company provided the letter of confirmation by the end of the week. Excellent!
We'd had enough grief from the house fire that we just wanted everything sorted as soon as possible so we decided there and then we would go with Allied Carpets as they seemed VERY accomodating. Unfortunately we c ouldn't place an order there and then as each room of our house needed to be measured to see what size carpets were needed. No problem though, an appointment was made for someone to come round and measure up just two days later.
Choosing our purchases
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Straight after our house had been measured up we went back to Allied Carpets to place our order. By this time they had recieved the confirmation from the insurance company about how much we were entitled to.
The female shop assistant took us through the shop showing us all the different types of flooring available. (she was probably after a hefty commision) We had already been informed by the insurance company that we would be allocated just over 1300 to carpet the whole house so we could basically splash out on whatever type we wanted.
Rather than her pushing us into what we didn't want she was actually the opposite. No laminate floors were forced on us or expensive kitchen tiles. Instead she showed us around the offers, sales and hard wearing carpets. Perfect! A shop assistant who actually knows what you want rather than thinking they know what you want.
We chose a hard wearing lino for the kitchen. We were going to choose one with lots of small squares on them until she told us it would make our kitchen look smaller. Good point! So she directed us to a similar lino with much larger squares which would apparently make our kitchen look larger.
For the living room we told her we wanted a carpet which wouldn't gather muck and show up stains straight away. We were directed to a terracota coloured carpet (not deep pile) which was on the sale. If my memory serves me correctly I think it was 4.99 per square yard, but I could be wrong.
For the hall and stairs we actually went against her advice (much to our regret) and plu mped for a creamy coloured carpet. Now why did we do that? She did tell us it would get mucky really quickly but did we listen? Did we heck.
For the bathroom as it is situated right at the top of the stairs we decided to have the same colour carpet as the stairs. God knows why we did that either. We should have had laminate but we're fools.
For our bedroom she directed us to yet another load of sale items. We chose a lovely lilac carpet as I have always wanted a purple bedroom. Well my Husband won't let me have purple walls so I settled on just the carpet. Amongst these load of carpets we also chose a baby blue carpet for my sons bedroom. Sorted! Everything done in one day. Now it just had to be priced up.
Pricing up
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Pricing everything up only took a matter of minutes. Unfortunately, us being a bit naive, forgot about adding the price on for underlay, gripper rods and fitting. (ah, that's why she was showing us the cheap carpets) So on top of the cost of the carpets, the other things were also included. A few taps away at the calculator and it was confirmed we were in budget. Yay! Not only that but we had another 150 to play with.
If the insurance company were going to allocate us over 1300 I was gonna make sure we spent every last penny. We picked a couple of designer rugs and added them to the list.
Reserving the items
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As our house had not yet been finished by the builders there was no way we were even nearly ready to have the carpets fitted. Again we were assured that it wasn't a problem and so long as we kept Allied Carpets informed they would reserve the items.
The rugs we chose were taken out of the shop and put away so as no-one else could buy them. Mmmmm, it's a bit tricky to do that with a ll the carpets though. Still we were told that all the carpets (apart from 1) we had chosen were always going to be available as there was no plans to discontinue them.
The one carpet where there was a little problem with was the living room. That particular carpet was the last roll and it could possibly be sold to someone else by the time we wanted it fitted. Hey, at least we were told before hand. I didn't see it as a problem though as it's pretty easy to find another carpet for your front room. No big deal.
Having them fitted
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Can you believe it was a whole 4 months before we had them fitted. No it wasn't Allied Carpets fault, it was the insurance companies fault. (Grrrrrr) The builder didn't finish the work on the house until 6 months after the fire, that was because he couldn't start the work for 2 months as he had recieved no money towards the costs. (Grrrrr)
We kept Allied Carpets informed of the progress and they were very patient fortunately. When the time came for the carpets to be fitted the saleswoman who had originally sorted everything out for us seemed genuinely pleased. (was that because of the commision or genuine happiness for us?) Well whatever, she deserved the commision.
The only problem was the carpet for the living room was no longer available. Oh well, you can't have it all. In the endwe chose a very similar one to our original choice which was actually cheaper. This gave us an extra bit of money to play around with. We used it to put a deposit on a bed as they also sell a good range beds, tables, furniture. etc. I'm not entirely sure of their full range of goods as it was just the carpets we were mainly concentrating on.
She booked a time for the fitters to come and fit the carpets the next day. The fitters arrived on time and we left them to it. A couple of hours later we had a phonecall from one of the fitters saying they'd finished. That WAS quick.
What does the flooring look like?
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Brill! But you've got to remember that the last time we had seen carpets in the house was when they were all covered with soot and rubble. But in all honesty even now I think the carpets look great. Every carpet had been fitted perfectly. No loose edges. No ripples.
Any problems?
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The rugs we ordered hadn't been brought with the carpets. All we had to do to sort the problem out was give the shop a quick ring. 'Oh yes, they're in the office' we were told. Never mind, it's not a big deal to have a little slip up. We decided to collect them ourselves as we were heading up that way anyway.
What about the bed?
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The initial deposit we put down out of the remainder of our insurance money had been enough to put an order in. The bed we chose was reduced from just over 800 to 400 pound. We opted to have four draws put in at the bottom of the bed which increased the price by roughly 100. A week later we payed the balance on the bed.
Once we were back in our fully carpetted house we again gave Allied a ring to see when it could be delivered. Thankfully we only had to wait a couple of days.
The delivery men who brought the bed carried it in sections up the stairs put it together and even took all the wrapping off. A miracle! I've ordered large items from companies before and the items have just been dumped in the front room.
My opinion
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Of all the stress involved in having a house fire it is great to know there are companies out there who will try to help you in whatever way they can. Allied Carpets bent over backwards for us and it was appreciated more than they'll ever know.
The carpets were, and still are, fantastic. No corners have come up, nothing is rippling, everything is great. The bed is the comfiest bed I have ever slept in and the rugs look really posh (one of them is designed by Jeff Banks)
Would I recommend them?
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Yes definitely. I don't know how they treat their day to day customers but they certainly know how to treat those in a crisis. We felt really looked after and trusted them entirely. They did not fail in their job to satisfy customer needs. In fact they didn't just satisfy us, they did more than that, they restored our faith in companies after all the crap we went through after the fire."
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