Wynne, carpet was tested and did a small room first as well. All was fine until it started drying, especially on the areas that had more traffic.
This will sound odd but.... when standing up and cleaning the carpet looked good, when we got to the stairs and were closer and had the upstairs hall at eye level you could see strands starting to ping up. After the job was finished the housekeeper walked around with us and it didn't look too bad at all. I had a call 2 or 3 days later and went and had a look and it was horrendous, a furry mess really
I think one of the reasons it acted like this was because of the way it is made and something to do with having a very flimsy backing. From what I understand each thread is inserted by hand and each thread is about an inch long, looks like one side of it has broken off and 'stood up'. Hopefully someone here who knows about carpet construction better than me can offer an explanation.
I do have some pictures but they're not very good as taken with phone camera and they also don't show the true extent of the damage ( trust you to want some trashed carpet porn
).
Nigel, from what I gleamed from the Loss Adjuster during our meeting I don't think it is a case of 'new for old'! He asked how old the carpet was ( 5 years I think) and what sort of condition it was in as that would reflect what they would pay if it is proven I'm at fault. From talking to the owners of the carpet I know they aren't interested in getting this type of carpet again (although they did try to have it put downstairs as well but couldn't as it was no longer available).