What is your experience with or knowledge of Empire Carpets?

Both places use subcontractors who will be paid anywhere from 1/5 to ⅓ of what you’re paying the company. You will have no real way of knowing who they’re going to send to your house. And for that matter, neither will the store.

@Seek thanks but I was wondering if anyone had used either company and if they did a good job.

That’s the thing: The company doesn’t do the job. A subcontractor does. The job done isn’t a product or service of the company. They find someone (generally the person most willing to do the job for the least money) to go into your house and install the flooring.

For personal experience, a company my husband used to be affiliated with was a subcontractor (sometimes) for Flooring America. They did jobs in really ritzy homes and not-so-ritzy homes. The owner paid his employees cash under the table and hired drunks and junkies who would riffle through homeowners’ medicine cabinets looking for pills.

Flooring America, of course, didn’t know anything about any of that.

You do have the option of finding your own installation company. It’s less convenient than letting the store do it for you, but you’ll have a little more control over who you eventually let into your bedroom.

I’ve used Home Depot to good effect. A big box store is not likely to use an installer whom they get repeated complaints about.

Why not try somebody local. Then you can see what you are getting and bang on their front door if thing go wrong.

My brother-in-law manages a Lowes and as @janbb describes, they do know who is reliable and will reflect well on Lowes.

All I know about Empire is the phone number. And now I’ll be hearing that jingle for a couple of days.

I just recently used Home Depot. I had a good experience with them and the installers. They came out and measured my room and everything was pre cut so when they got there the installation was really quick.

My nephew does installations for Home Depot. He does nice work BUT he will refuse to do a job when the estimate does not consider that there might be unseen damage below the carpet. A couple of times he has been sent to jobs and when he removed the carpet he discovered the sub-floor was completely rotted or saturated with cat or dog pee and needed to be replaced. Sometimes he arrives on jobs and finds the floors are still saturated with water damage and must be dried out – a process that can take days. When he points this out to the customers most of them understand and agree but some get angry and demand he do it for the quoted price. Fortunately he photographs everything and can send the pictures to Home Depot immediately. Rather than do a crap job and receive complaints later, he will call Home Depot and tell them they need to send a new estimate or another contractor.
He simply will not put a new floor on top of a rotted or soaked sub-floor. And he will not change the sub-floor unless he is paid to do so. (I think that is a good business practice but it does lose some customers.)

^ Yes. Good going, @LuckyGuy‘s Nephew, for not letting an easy payday compromise his work ethic.

It is a mix of ethics and economics (30/70, my estimate). If he puts a new floor or carpet on a rotten sub-floor there is a good chance the new floor will have problems. He will then be called back again and again to fix it – most likely at no charge. It is far better to refuse than get sucked into a deal like that.

We have used Home Depot for our rental house, and are currently using them to have three bedrooms and a hallway done in our own house. The work is scheduled for December, because of their huge backlog.

Our main reason was the great financing they gave us.

Don’t do it. I had them come out during one of their “50% off” sale periods, they gave me a quote that was twice what I eventually paid Lumber Liquidators.

@syz I suggest you always get three estimates. Show them to the different contractors to see if they will change their offer.

For a recent paint contract I had, I chose the painter who listened to what I want and told me a lot about his company. His willingness to talk was important to me.