Found a 1986 carpet invoice with a $2.19/sq ft price tag

I was cleaning out an old van I bought from a retired installer last month and found a crumpled invoice under the seat. The job was a 1,200 sq ft living room in Phoenix, and they charged $2.19 a square foot for the carpet, pad, and labor all together. Meanwhile I just bid the same size room at $8.50 a square foot and the customer thought I was ripping them off. Crazy how this trade has changed in 40 years. Anyone else ever come across old paperwork that made you do a double take?

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the_avery1mo ago

Hold on, that comparison is kind of apples to oranges, you know? That $2.19 price from 1986 was probably just for basic loop carpet with a jute pad, not the stuff people expect now. These days, 8 dollars a foot usually means nice padding, better fibers that don't flatten out in a year, and the labor includes moving furniture and pulling up the old stuff in Phoenix heat. Forty years ago, they were probably charging extra for that too, or the homeowner handled it themselves. Plus, that old invoice doesn't list all the prep work or the stain treatments that are pretty standard now. So yeah, prices went up, but so did the actual product and the scope of the job.

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