Buying a carpet is a big expense so you need to be aware of the various choices you have and what you are paying for. It can be quite difficult knowing which carpet to buy so the following guidelines should help you.
If your new carpet is for a hall, stairs or living room (areas with a lot of foot traffic and wear), the main consideration will be how durable the carpet will be otherwise your purchase will start looking old and worn very quickly. With carpets for bedrooms, however, you can relax a little as these rooms get less wear and you can go all out for comfort underfoot and looks.
How Carpets are Constructed
All carpets are manufactured in one of three basic ways. They can be woven, tufted or bonded.
Woven carpets are more expensive than the other two types. In this type of carpet, the pile and backing are woven together to produce a very durable carpet which resists wear. There are two types of weaving used – Axminster and Wilton. With Axminster, many colors can be included in the carpet whereas with the Wilton process you are more restricted so that is often used for plain color or tweed effect carpets.
With tufted carpets, the pile is stitched onto pre-woven backing and latex adhesive is used to bond the two materials together. Further backing is then added to create a strong durable carpet.
Bonded carpets have no pile. In this process (also known as “needlefelt”) fibers are added to an adhesive backing and bonded together with heat to secure them. A backing layer is then often added. This process is used for cheap carpet and carpet tiles.
Carpet Materials
Cut Pile Beige Carpet
Nylon carpets vary in quality. Although nylon has the advantage of being extremely hard wearing and the best nylon carpets are as soft as wool, cheap carpets feel hard and attract dirt because of static.
Acrylic carpets are soft like wool and are hard wearing too. This makes them the ideal candidate for blending with other fibers in carpet manufacturing. Acrylic is more expensive than Nylon but cheaper than wool. Acrylic is often sold under different brand names.
Polypropylene carpets (also known as Olefin) are inexpensive and hard wearing but sometimes the fibers can feel quite harsh. Polypropylene tends to flatten quite quickly so it is better used in short pile carpets or incorporated with other fibers which have more resistance.
Carpet Pile
The carpet pile can be created by looping it and out of the backing material or it can be cut.
Cut Pile Carpets
There are various lengths of cut pile. Very short pile is known as velvet, velour or plush. This has a sheen to it but it may show footprints and track marks so check this if you are buying. Saxony carpets have a slightly longer pile with thicker fibers than velvet but they are best used with a twist fiber to avoid track marks. Frieze carpet (which is also known as Twist Pile, Hardtwist and Hightwist) has an even longer pile made of both straight and highly twisted yarns. Twist carpets are more casual in appearance than plain velvet but they resist soiling and track marks so may keep their good looks for longer. Long pile is known as shag pile and comes in various lengths. It creates a very textured look but must be well-cared for or grit hidden in the fibers will cause wear. Do not use long pile shag carpets on stairs for safety reasons as heels could catch in the pile.
Loop Pile Carpets
Loop pile is very hard wearing as the ends of the pile are not exposed but may created at different lengths. Tightly woven looped pile is known as corded. Berber carpets also use a loop pile with all the loops the same height (“level loop” carpets). Because of the way the carpet is woven, these carpets wear very well as any wear is on the sides of the loops and not on the ends of the pile. Berber however has a rougher surface than the cut piles so it is best for places where a very hard wearing carpet is needed. Patterned Loop carpets have loops of different lengths arranged to create a pattern.
Cut and Loop Mixture
Some carpets includes both loops and cut pile. These can be combined to create a variety of patterns and textures.
Carpet Padding
Just when you reckon up how much you have to pay for your carpet, you are faced with buying padding for the whole floor area too! Carpet padding or underlay should be matched to the type of carpet you are buying. If your carpet is foam backed it can be installed straight onto the floor with only a layer of paper underneath to prevent the foam sticking to the floor. (It is no fun scraping the backing from the floorboards. You will know this if you have ever lifted a carpet where they forgot to put the paper). Use felt or rubber padding for fabric-backed carpets and choose the grade and thickness depending on the evenness of the floor, the amount of wear the area will receive and the amount of insulation you are looking for. There is no point in saving money on padding, as cheap carpet padding will spoil the whole look of your carpet and cause it to wear more than it otherwise would.
