Cloud 9 dominated the market for several years before the competition began to grow fierce in the UK. Carpenter entered the market and made mincemeat of Cloud 9 pricewise and the quality looked to be equal to most retailers. A lot of retailers began to switch away from rubber underlays as the price of them rose steeply and the price of PU underlay fell markedly once Carpenter entered the fray with Deepstep an Richstep especially selling like hot cakes.
Very Nice PU Underlay from Carpenter
Tredaire was always the big player along with Duralay and now these two brands are under one roof via Interfloor. There is no doubt that rubber underlays have taken a serious hammering recently from PUs as price, comfort and convenience has taken its toll on the old guard.
The PU market has been a battlefield in the last 18 months or so with Ball & Young bringing out a budget range, Floorwise getting in on the act big time with their Hyper range and Carpenter expanding their range hugely. Add to this a lot of weird and not so wonderful dodgy imported junk coming in clear bags for almost a dime a dozen and you have a cluttered marketplace. We’ve stuck with Carpenter as being the best pound for pound. We don’t sell rubber underlay now at all and we aren’t alone in that.
We ditched it partly because of price, environmental concerns and also the weight of the damned things. Lugging a pallet of 100lb rolls of rubber underlay into the storeroom is no fun and fitters don’t enjoy lifting them up winding stairs on a cold and frosty January morning that’s for sure. PU also just feels way better to me and I have it in my own house.
So there you have some background – rubber fading away and PU rising and rising, but Interfloor are now seeking to stem the tide with their ‘Campaign for Real Underlay‘. Fair play to them, it’s a bold attempt and a pretty good website, but I’m just not buying it boys.
A Very Nice Rubber Underlay by Tredaire
Their claims that customers prefer it simply do not tally with my experience. If I show them to customers side by side then most of the customers who come into my shop prefer PU and by a long way too. I don’t agree that it looks or performs better pound for pound and I don’t agree that it is more environmentally friendly. Remember that this is my opinion and I am not backing it up with a bunch of scientific mumbo jumbo from a bunch of scientists I have commissioned.
If I show a customer what PU I can offer them for £5 or £6 a metre and then show them what rubber I can offer them for the same price then PU wins hands down.
This post looks like an anti-rubber underlay one and I don’t deny that there are some cracking crumb or combination rubber underlays around, but unless the customer is happy to pay upwards of £7 per metre for underlay then I don’t even think of showing them rubber when their money is better spent elsewhere in my very humble opinion.
(Originally posted on 12th January 2010)
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