Carpet

Carpet Types

Backing types

Foam rubber

• feels soft underfoot
• doesn't need separate underlay, saving money
• non-shrinking
• foam backing disintegrates eventually
• a layer of newspaper stops it sticking to the floor

Hessian

• Prone to shrink during cleaning
• Prone to rot in damp locations
• Such carpets benefit from underlay

Woven plastic

• Synthetic equivalents to hessian are unaffected by cleaning

Felt

• a low cost backing

Plastic

• Waterproof, found on bathroom carpets

Bitumen

Backing used for commercial carpet tiles

Pile materials

Wool

• Generates static, causing wear
• Costs more and performs worse than wool/synthetic blend
• Soaks up stains
• A historic option

Wool/synthetic blend

• The right blend more or less eliminates static production, extending carpet life
• 70/30 and 80/20 are quality mixtures
• Best option for luxury carpets

Synthetic

• Generates static, causing wear
• Fairly impervious to staining
• Good option for business premises

Bleachable

• 100% synthetic
• Bleach-safe polypropylene fibre & bleach safe colouring
• Good choice for maximum cleanability

Pile production methods

Axminster & Wilton

• Much used luxury carpet types.
• These are manufacturing methods, not brand names, so may be made in any location.

Cut pile

Carpets made by punching cut pile through the backing are much cheaper,

• don't last as long
• Very popular carpet type.
• The pile flattens worse than twisted pile types

Cord

• A robust low cost carpet type
• feels rough and stiff
• corrugated appearance
• mainly used in business premises
• not great for home use

Carpet tiles

• If one tile gets stained or damaged, its easily replaced.
• Much used in business premises
• Stuck down with tackifier. This makes for quick tile removal any time.

Shag

• Luxury carpet type popular in the 70s.
• Now superseded.

Flotex

A brand of fully waterproof antimicrobial carpets.

Quality

Quality of carpet depends on

• Pile density
  • the more the better, generally
• Pile material mixture
  • 70/30 and 80/20 are good for luxury carpets, or 100% bleachable polypropylene for cleanability
• How pile is attached to backing
  • Woven piles like Axminster & Wilton are more durable than punched cut pile.

Buying carpet

New

Large discounts can be had from retailers.

Beware of the travelling sellers that show good quality specimens then fit cheaper carpet, claiming its what you ordered and paid for.

Used

Choose clean carpet only. Used carpet can be cleaned, but cleaning may fail to remove all stains, and general dirt can hide stains. Used carpets are available from giveaway schemes such as freecycle and others.

Offcuts

New limited size pieces left over from stocked budget carpets. Often no cheaper than buying the same carpet off the roll.

Economy Measures

If money is tight, using reasonably clean used carpets as underlay can leave enough money for better quality carpet. This has its pros and cons, and is discussed here. In short it supports the carpet less, and relatively thin weak carpets can wear faster as a result.

Carpet fitting

See Carpet laying

Carpet Stretching

This is one topic that tends to bring up opposing points of view at times, whether stretching is necessary or not. Lots of people lay carpet sucessfully without stretching it.

Carpet and Downlighters

Mixing downlighting with carpets is a recipe for poor energy efficiency. The darker the carpet, the worse the result.

Carpet in Vehicles

• Vehicle carpet is prone to condensation
• Hessian backing does not last as well when damp is enountered, but is fine if it stays dry.
• Synthetic pile & backing is most tolerant of damp.
• Bathroom carpet is the domestic type closest to car carpets. Its waterproof.
• The author doesn't know if original vehicle carpets have any fire retardants added to improve safety.

Carpet in Bathrooms

Unpopular due to hygiene issues

If you want bathroom carpet, a carpet cleaner would be a good idea too.

Pick a non-shrink backing

Waterproof backing is best for suspended timber floors. A permeable backing is best for historic masonry floors with no dpc, as it permits evaporation from the floor.

Carpet Cleaning

See the Full FAQ

Repair & Maintenance

Areas of flattened pile

1. Spray with water.
2. Brush vigorously until pile stands up.
3. Leave to dry

Fraying or shedding edges

To stop deterioration

1. hoover clean
2. cut away stragglers
3. apply latex glue to backing, eg Copydex.

PVA also works, but dries semi-rigid, so must be kept to the backing and base of pile only to maintain a soft feel for bare feet. PVA can make the carpet feel stiff at first, but it softens in use.

To repair

• Cut out a rectangle where damaged
• Cut a replacement piece of carpet from somewhere inconspicuous, eg under a sofa (or of course from stored spare carpet if you have some)
• Align the lay of the pile of the new patch with the carpet
• Fix patch to trimmed damaged area using carpet tape
• Or glue patch in place using latex
• Apply latex to all cut edges to prevent fraying.
• If you don't want the carpet to stick to the floor or underlay, put a piece of cloth flat under the cutout hole, gluing it in place, and glue the new patch to it.

Paint on carpet

Wet paint

If the paint is water based and still wet, act right away and you should get a perfectly clean result.

• Mop it up wth paper towels or loo roll
• Half an hour with a cloth & plenty of clean water should see it looking like new.

Dry paint

Spots of dried emulsion can be removed with a chisel. With this method its possible to remove lots of paint spots and leave the carpet looking like new.

Simply scrape the chisel over the paint spot in the direction shown:

  //
 //  ---> scrape it this way --->
|/

When scraping, its necessary to rotate the direction of scraping round so the carpet is scraped from all angles. Scraping over it in one or 2 directions isn't effective. What does in all directions mean? If you were to move yourself around the paint spot while you scraped, always scraping toward yourself, that would do it.

See Also

• Carpet Cleaning FAQ
• Carpet cleaning thread on ukdiy
• Underlay review
• Wiki Contents
• Wiki Subject Categories