A carpet remnant is the piece left over at the end of a roll after a bigger job has been cut from it. The mill makes carpet in twelve foot wide rolls of a hundred feet or so, a customer buys eighty feet of it for their house, and what is left is a remnant.
Same carpet. Same roll. Same dye lot. It just is not long enough to sell as a roll anymore, so it gets priced as a single piece and moved to the remnant rack.
That is the whole idea, and it has been the core of what we do on Route 51 since 1970.
Why remnants cost less
Nothing is wrong with the carpet. The discount comes from inventory math.
A store holding a twenty foot piece of a discontinued style cannot sell it to someone carpeting a whole house, because there is not enough of it. It sits there taking up rack space. So it gets priced to move as one piece, often well under what the same carpet cost by the yard when the roll was full.
You are buying somebody else’s leftover, and the leftover happens to be exactly the right size for your bedroom.
The one thing to watch for
Some places use the word remnant loosely and mix in mill seconds, irregulars, and closeout goods with real defects. That is where the reputation for cheap remnants comes from.
Ask any store directly whether their remnants are first quality. We only stock first-quality goods, and we will tell you which mill a piece came from and why it ended up on the rack. If a piece has a flaw, it does not go on our floor.
What sizes you will find
Almost every remnant is twelve feet wide, because that is how carpet is manufactured. Some mills run thirteen foot six or fifteen foot widths, and those show up occasionally.
Length is where it varies. We carry pieces from about three feet up to twenty feet or more. A twelve by fifteen piece covers a standard bedroom with room to trim. A twelve by twenty handles a large living room or a finished basement.
The stock turns over constantly, which is the only real drawback. The piece you saw online last Tuesday might be gone. It is worth checking what is on the floor right now before you drive out, and worth calling if you have a specific color in mind.
When a remnant is the right call
Remnants make sense for:
Any single room under about twelve by twenty. Bedrooms, home offices, dens, nurseries. This is the sweet spot.
Finished basements and rec rooms. Especially if you want something you would not be heartbroken to replace in eight years.
Rental properties. Landlords buy remnants by the stack, and it is the right instinct.
A custom area rug. Pick a piece, we cut it to size and bind the edges, and you walk out with a rug in a size and color you would never find prebound. More on that in our guide to turning a remnant into an area rug.
Stairs. A twelve foot wide piece cut into treads goes a long way, and stairs use less material than people expect.
When you should buy from a roll instead
If you are carpeting more than one room and want them to match, buy from a roll. Two remnants of the same style from different dye lots will not look identical under daylight, and once you notice it you cannot stop noticing it.
Same goes for a large open floor plan, or a whole house. The odds of finding one remnant big enough are slim, and piecing it together introduces seams in places you do not want them.
Order-in carpet also gives you the full color range and current styles. The remnant wall gives you what happens to be there.
How we price them
Each piece has a price on it for the piece, not per yard. What you see is what the carpet costs.
Installation, padding, tack strip, and tear-out of your old carpet are separate, the same as they would be with roll goods. If you are taking the piece home to use as is, there is nothing else to pay. If you want it cut and bound into a rug, that is priced by the linear foot of edge.
We also deliver, which matters more than you would think when the piece is twelve feet wide and you drove a sedan.
Come look
Photos help, but carpet is one of those things you have to see under real light and put your hand on. Colors read differently on a screen, and pile height and density are impossible to judge from a photo.
We are at 2855 Saw Mill Run Blvd on Route 51 in Pittsburgh. Parking is behind the building. Open Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday until 8pm, Tuesday and Friday until 5pm, and Saturday until 2pm.
Call (412) 885-1444 if you want to know whether we have something in a particular color before you make the trip.
