What Rug Repair Costs

Rug repair pricing looks opaque from outside and is actually fairly simple: the cheap jobs are measured in linear feet, the expensive ones in square inches, and the difference between the two is whether anything has to be rebuilt knot by knot.

Figures below are indicative ranges for guidance, not quotations. Rates vary substantially by region and by the restorer's skill, and a good restorer is worth more than a cheap one on a rug worth keeping.

How restorers quote

By the linear foot for edge and end work — reselvedging, securing ends, overcasting. This is the cheap category.

By the square inch for reweaving — rebuilding lost pile and foundation. This is skilled hand work at approximately the rate the rug was originally woven at, which is why a patch the size of a postcard can cost more than a whole machine-made rug.

By the hour for specialist work: dye matching, colour correction, structural stabilisation on antiques.

Minimum charges apply almost everywhere. A very small job may cost the minimum regardless of size, which is an argument for having several small things done at once rather than returning three times.

What each job costs, relatively

The single most useful pattern in that table: everything cheap is preventive, and everything expensive is remedial. Edge work done early costs very little and prevents the foundation damage that reweaving exists to fix.

The threshold

Two questions decide whether a repair is worth commissioning, and they are independent.

Can the rug be repaired at all?

Hand-knotted — yes, essentially indefinitely. There is no adhesive in the rug, so a restorer can rebuild foundation and pile using the same technique that made it.

Flatweave and kilim — partly. Reweaving a flatweave is possible and difficult, and the repair is more visible than on pile.

Hand-tufted — effectively no. The rug is yarn punched through a canvas and held by latex. When the latex fails there is nothing to reweave into, and patching shows.

Machine-made — no. Not economically, and usually not technically.

Is the repair worth less than the rug?

For a machine-made or hand-tufted rug, almost any real repair costs more than replacement. This is not a failure of the rug — it is what you accepted when you bought a five-to-fifteen year object, and there is no reason to feel bad about replacing it.

For a hand-knotted rug the arithmetic usually runs the other way, particularly for edge work, and especially for anything antique. Get the rug valued before commissioning major work — rug value and appraisal.

Where repair reliably pays for itself

Edge and end work, always. The cheapest category, and it prevents the most expensive one. A failing selvedge unravels inward and a failing end sheds knots permanently, so every week of delay increases the eventual bill. See repairing rug edges and fringes.

Moth damage, caught early. Stabilising a grazed area is far cheaper than reweaving a hole — moth damage.

Anything structural on a rug you intend to keep. Foundation damage compounds. Pile wear does not, at least not quickly.

Where it usually does not

Cosmetic reweaving of light pile wear on a rug of modest value. Even wear across a rug is not damage; it is what an old rug looks like, and buyers of antique rugs expect it.

Anything on a hand-tufted rug, for the reasons above.

Colour correction on a chemically stripped rug. Expensive, rarely convincing, and it does not restore value.

A rug that has been reduced. Cutting a rug down to remove damage or fit a room substantially reduces value and is not reversible. Repairing a rug that has already been cut rarely recovers what was lost — antique rug red flags.

Choosing a restorer

Ask to see work in progress, not just finished photographs. Finished photographs show what a good repair looks like; work in progress shows how it is being done.

Ask what they will do to the edges specifically. Wool matched to the rug, worked over the original warps, is the right answer. Machine binding or a sewn-on tape is not.

Ask about dye matching. Good restorers dye wool to match, including matching the abrash in the surrounding area. Using the nearest available yarn is quicker and shows.

Be wary of anyone who offers to add a fringe. On a hand-knotted rug the fringe is the warp itself, and a sewn-on fringe is a cosmetic attachment that hides the actual condition of the ends.

Get it in writing — what is being done, on what basis, and the total. As with buying, this costs nothing and turns a conversation into something you have recourse on.

For which jobs to attempt yourself, see rug repair: DIY vs professional — the short answer is edges never, cleaning sometimes, and adhesive of any kind absolutely not.