Carpet

Choosing Your Carpet

Choosing carpet for your home or work space looks as easy as picking the right color.  However, there are many thing sto consider in your search, such as your budget, the carpet's suitability for certain areas and its performance over time.  Also remember that flooring is the foundation for home decor.  Selecting the right color and texture should be central to the decision making process in buying carpet.  The advent of carpet fiber stain technology brought about a revolution in color possibilities.  Generally speaking, darker shades create drama, lighter shades create a sense of spaciousness.

What is Carpet?

Carpet is made up of fibers, mesh backing, an attached cusion, and the latex adhesive to hold the pile of twisted fibers in place.  Better carpets have better latex adhesive.  As for fibers, they may be nylon, olefin, polyester, acrylic or wool.  By far, the majority of carpets sold in the US are nylon, thanks to its durability, colorfastness, stain and soil resistance, and resilience to matting.

In fact, nylon carpet will NEVER wear out, it will just wear. When the twisted fibers known as pile begin to relax, the carpet begins to look tired.  This tendency to relax, or "blossom out," is common in cut-pile carpeting.  The brightness and color of cut pile also tend to fade over time.  Mid-range and high-end carpets can be expected to last and look good for 12 to 15 years.  This level of wearability and durability comes at a price, however: Mid-range carpets vary in price fro $25 to $35 per yard, while high-end carpet typically costs upward of $45 per yard.

Carpet quality is judged by density and pile.  Density is the thickness and closeness of the pile yarn.  High density is considered an advantage.  The very densest carpets are so packed with fibers per square inch, that it is difficult to wiggle a finger all the way down to the mesh.  So, the denser the pile, the better the carpet.

The general rule of thumb is to buy the best carpet you can afford, coupled with the highest quality padding. (Litchfield Hills Flooring includes an 8 lb pad in their installation quotes.) In fact, the padding that goes between the carpeting and the subflooring is as important as the choice of carpeting itself.  Padding provides softness and support, cuts down on noise and insulates the floor.  Often referred to as "underlay" or "cushion", padding thickness depends on the pile of the carpet above it.  Padding should be no thicker the 7/16 inch, even for a very deep pile carpet.  Too much cushion can actually void a manufacturer's warranty: so, take the time to find the padding that is right for your new carpet.

A Quick Lesson in Construction

Look at both tufted and woven carpets.  Construction methods fall under three major categories: cut pile (or saxony), loop pile and cut and loop pile.

Cut Pile - All carpet starts out as loop, but machine-cutting turns loop into cut pile.  While pile may not be a factor in carpet performance, it is the key factor in carpet preference.  The industry recognizes three textures of cut pile: plush, Saxony, and frieze.  Plush, also called velvet because of its smooth face, is both dense and uniform.  Carpet buyers choose plush for a formal look. Saxony is less flormal, with individual strands of yarn twisted together and heat set.  Saxony's texture is varied and irregular, in contrast to plush's uniform appearance. Frieze is the most durable and least formal of the three pile styles.  Frieze has a nubby texture and a characteristic curl that come from tightly twisting the yarn before looping and cutting.

Loop Pile - All carpet begins as loop pile.  Those that remain uncut are called loop carpets.  Within the loop carpet family, there are several combinations: level loop, cut and loop, and multi-level loop.  Level loop is all one height and is usually made of olefin.  Cut and loop is a combination of the two tuft styles, which adds a chiseled look to the carpeting.  Multi-level loop carpet is similar in that it has high and low patterns flowing throughout the carpet.

Berber is loop-pile carpet constructed of bulky wool, nylon or olefin.  Berbers come in level loop or multi-level loop styles.  Berbers, because of their pile, do not hide seams like dense cut pile does.  If a Berber is burned, torn or badly stained, the entire section of damaged carpet must be replaced.  Unlike cut pile, Berber cannot be repaired.

Carpet prices begin at about $9 per square yard ($1.00/SF) and go on up from there.  Padding and installation will cost another $5 to $10 per square yard, while the brand name, pile weight and stain/water-resistance features add even more to the final price.  According to manufacturers, all carpet is manufactured to resist staining, crushing, fading and wear.  Additional treatments are available at a price however.

Our Carpet Manufacturers

(Links will be available soon!!)

Fabrica

Peerless

Design Gallery

Mohawk

Stanton

(See also our Wool link for more carpet manufacturers.)