Rugs, Carpets and Carpeting - Carpeting on stairs

We recently (today) decided that we should replace carpeting on our stairs (15 steps) vs. installing laminate on them. After two quotes of around $1000 for the carpet and install, we were floored! That's more than we're going to spend for the new laminate flooring upstairs!

My question to the experts: It doesn't appear that installing the carpet is such a hard task, so why is the installation cost so outrageous? Is it just because it's time consuming?

No clue. Assuming you used twenty dollar a yard carpet, I don't come up with more than around four hundred to do the job. Steps are the worst part of carpet work and, not being able to look at yours, perhaps there's something unusual about them. Then again, perhaps they just don't want to do them and figure, if they bid high and still get it, they'll make good money on it. Why don't you do them yourself? After all, it doesn't appear to be all that hard a task.

I worked in a carpet store for 10 years and I know that our installer charged extra per step...the amount varied depending on the stairs (if there were banister poles to cut around, if it just butted up to a wall, etc...) the price also went up recently due to gas prices (he uses his personal vehicle not a company one). That may be why the price is so high...of course even with that the quotes you got still seem quite a bit steep. I would continue checking around for other prices if I were you...stairs may seem easy to carpet but they are one of the harder parts of installing carpet. If you do choose to do them yourself be sure to roll the carpet around the stair lip and staple it under the edge of the lip (this will keep it from shifting as much on the edge where you step and keep it from wearing as fast).

The quotes was very ballpark; no one had even seen our stairs, but would gladly charge us $35 to come out and measure (fee would be refunded if we hired them to do the gig).

All the steps are enclosed - no banisters to go around, so it might be less than a grand.

After more research (mostly on these forums) I've decided to do the steps myself. I was leaning that way in the first place, but my wife had other ideas. After hearing the quotes, her confidence in my DIY skills has suddenly surged!

I had not heard the tip about stapling underneath the edge of the lip. I will try it out! Thanks to you both for the info.

A number of shops have gone to that "charge to measure and then refund thing" out of self defence. With the advent of the internet, people will get a shop to measure with the pretense of shopping, get the amount needed from them, and then buy over the internet and the shop has just wasted their time and resources on the bogus customer. The honorable thing to do is offer to pay the shop for the measurement, but most don't do that. Installing the stuff yourself is difficult, but certainly not rocket science. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. We'll be glad to talk you through it.