Kettering NN15 and NN16 Flooring Guide: What Suits the Town's Terraces, Estates and New Builds

In most Kettering homes across NN15 and NN16 the pattern that works is carpet on the stairs and in the bedrooms, with LVT or sheet vinyl in the hall, kitchen and bathroom. What changes is the floor underneath: old boards in the terraces, concrete on the estates and fresh screed in the new builds. Carpet starts from £14 per m² supplied and fitted.

Kettering is in Northamptonshire, and we have no shop in the town. Our team is based at the Peterborough showroom and travels to you, so the samples and the measuring come to your own rooms. This guide takes the town's housing type by type, then room by room. For the service itself, see our page on carpets and flooring in Kettering.

Which parts of Kettering are NN15 and which are NN16?

Broadly, NN16 covers the town centre and the north of the town, and NN15 covers the south and east, along with Barton Seagrave and Burton Latimer. The postcode matters less than the age of the house, but the two line up with how the town was built.

• Older terraces: Kettering grew on the boot and shoe trade, and the workers' terraces from those years sit in the streets around the town centre, mostly in NN16.
• Larger period homes: the bigger houses the factory owners built, in areas such as the Headlands in NN15 and Rockingham Road in NN16.
• Inter-war and post-war estates: the semis and short terraces built between the wars and in the decades after, on estates such as Avondale Grange and Brambleside in NN16 and Ise Lodge in NN15.
• New builds: Hanwood Park, the new neighbourhood on the east side of town in NN15, planned for 5,500 homes.

What flooring suits each type of Kettering home?

This is the pattern we suggest most often. Your quote is built around the house as we find it.

As a guide, supplied and fitted: hard-wearing twist carpet from £14 per m² with underlay and gripper included, wool-mix twist or saxony £25–£40 per m², stair carpet from £25 per step, sheet vinyl from £15 per m², laminate from £18 per m², LVT from £35 per m² and engineered wood from £40 per m². Every figure is on our flooring prices page.

What works in Kettering's older terraces?

The terraces are where the fitting matters most, because very little in them is square, flat or wide. Three things come up again and again.

The stairs. In many of these houses the stairs are steep, narrow and enclosed, with a turn at the top or bottom. That turn is made of winders, the wedge-shaped steps, and each one is templated and cut separately. A dense, short twist is the right carpet here. It bends cleanly over the nosing and hides wear, where a deep saxony crushes on the step edges. Our stair carpet fitting is priced per step, typically £25–£55 depending on the carpet, the winders and any spindles. As a yardstick, a standard straight flight of 13–14 steps in a mid-range carpet with dense underlay comes to £350–£700 all in.

The boarded rooms. Front and middle rooms usually sit on timber boards over a ventilated void. Under carpet, that means fixing loose boards, punching down nails and using an underlay dense enough to stop the board lines showing through. Under LVT the boards need a plywood overlay first, which we itemise in the written quote. The airbricks outside stay clear, because the draught through that void is what keeps the joists dry.

The back kitchen. This is often a solid floor, sometimes with the original quarry tiles still there under later layers. Solid floors of that age can have no damp-proof membrane beneath them, so we test for moisture before any hard floor goes down. Old floors are rarely flat either. We check the levels at the visit and quote any levelling at £5–£15 per m², where it is needed.

In the hall and kitchen, a hard floor copes with wet shoes and grit far better than carpet. Sheet vinyl flooring is the budget route: a typical kitchen or bathroom of 6–12 m² costs £150–£450 all in. Carpet comes on 4 m and 5 m wide rolls, and most terrace rooms are narrower than 4 m, so they are fitted in one piece with no join.

What suits the inter-war and post-war estates?

Estate houses are more regular than the terraces, with wider halls, straighter stairs and bigger lounges. The floor underneath depends on the decade.

• Inter-war semis are typically boarded downstairs like the terraces, often with a bay window in the lounge. We measure into the bay, because the carpet has to be wide enough at the room's widest point.
• Post-war houses usually have a concrete ground floor. Lift the old carpet and you may find thermoplastic tiles or black bitumen adhesive from when the house was built. Tiles and adhesive of that age can contain asbestos, so they are tested before anyone sands, scrapes or lifts them.
• Later estate houses tend to have chipboard upstairs. If a landing or bedroom floor creaks, the time to screw it down is while the old carpet is up.

In the lounge, a wool-mix twist is the carpet we suggest most. An average living room of 16–20 m² in wool-mix twist costs £400–£800 all in. Laminate is the lower-cost hard floor for a dry room: AC3–AC4 boards run £18–£25 per m² with underlay and fitting included, and a typical living room of 16–20 m² comes to £350–£650 all in.

For a whole house, a typical 3-bed semi carpeted throughout costs £1,400–£3,500. That includes underlay, gripper, door bars, moving standard furniture and taking away the old carpet.

What should you fit in a Kettering new build?

New homes at Hanwood Park are usually handed over with bare screed or concrete downstairs and chipboard upstairs. Three points decide the order of work.

1. The screed has to be dry. We test with a hygrometer, and for LVT or wood the floor needs to read 75% relative humidity or below. Fitting sooner risks the floor lifting.
2. Upstairs can go first. Chipboard has no drying time, so the stairs, landing and bedrooms can be carpeted while the ground floor finishes drying.
3. Check for underfloor heating. LVT and engineered wood both work well over it. Carpet needs a low-tog underlay, and the heating should be commissioned before any floor is fitted.

Downstairs, the layout most buyers choose is one run of LVT from the front door through the hall and kitchen-diner. A hallway and kitchen-diner of 25–35 m² costs £900–£2,400 all in. Mid-range click and rigid-core LVT is £35–£50 per m². Premium glue-down Karndean and Amtico sits at £50–£70+ per m², with the exact range priced at the home visit. We also fit Moduleo and Quick-Step.

Buying off-plan? Measuring can wait until you have the keys, so the quote reflects the rooms as built. If the developer has offered a flooring package, we are happy to quote alongside it so you can compare like for like. Our new-build flooring page covers whole-house fits.

Which floor is best for each room?

• Hall and kitchen: LVT, which copes with water, grit and heavy traffic.
• Bathroom and utility: sheet vinyl or LVT with sealed edges.
• Lounge: wool-mix carpet, or engineered wood with a rug. Mid-range oak is £40–£60 per m².
• Stairs and landing: a twist or a loop that resists crushing. Choose the twist if you have cats, because claws pull loops.
• Bedrooms: a saxony or wool-mix carpet for warmth. For children's rooms, a stain-resistant polypropylene twist such as Cormar's Primo Plus or Apollo Plus is usually enough.

Underlay does as much for warmth and noise as the carpet does. A 9–11 mm PU foam suits living rooms and bedrooms, and stairs need a denser PU or crumb rubber. Standard underlay is included in our carpet prices.

The samples we bring to Kettering are from the same ranges shown on our pages for carpets in Peterborough, LVT flooring in Peterborough and laminate flooring in Peterborough. Carpet brands include Cormar, Westex, Ulster and Victoria.

How does a home visit work when the showroom is in Peterborough?

You do not need to travel, and the visit is free.

1. Book by phone or online.
2. We come to you with samples, so you see them in your own light.
3. We measure every room and check what the floor underneath is: boards, chipboard, concrete or screed.
4. A written quote reaches you within 24 hours, with any preparation listed as its own line.
5. Our own team fits the floor, with a 2-year workmanship guarantee.

The showroom itself is at 4 The Manor Grove Centre, Vicarage Farm Road, Peterborough PE1 5UH. We are rated 5.0 from 75 Google reviews, and we also cover Rothwell, Desborough, Thrapston and Corby.

Book a free home visit in Kettering

Terrace, estate semi or new home at Hanwood Park, the starting point is the same. Call 01733 924009 for a free home visit with samples anywhere in NN15 or NN16. We take calls Monday to Friday (9am–5pm), and your written quote arrives within 24 hours of the visit.