Selecting the right Carpet for your Space

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A common misconception when selecting carpet is that the thicker the carpet, the better it is. This is not the case and what you need to consider is that actual construction of the carpet.

How to identify a good quality carpet?

What you are looking for is a tight twist in each yarn, and definitely not loose and frayed at the end.

A firm, dense pile (the fabric loops of your carpeting) is also the mark of a quality carpet. How to check the density? Bend a corner of the carpet and see how much backing shows. The more backing you see, the less dense and durable the carpet.

What about high-traffic areas, which carpet is better?

For high traffic areas, we would recommend lower profile carpets that won’t have the potential to matte and crush.

What are carpets made of?

Synthetic Fiber is the basic material that carpet is made up of; Over ninety percent of all of the carpets manufactured today are made up of synthetic fiber. The rest is natural fiber, which is most commonly, wool.

Synthetic Fibers

Synthetic fibers are usually made up of one of three materials: nylon, polypropylene or polyester.

All three are created using oil and natural gas. Almost 75% of carpet today is made of nylon and from a performance perspective, is considered the best overall. Nylon will maintain color, styling and appearance for longer and has a high resistance to fade, heat and stains.In comparison the other fibers, like polypropylene, is not as resilient or resistant to abrasion as nylon, however it is naturally stain and fade resistant. Polypropylene’s natural resistance to moisture means that it must be dyed before being extracted, resulting in a more limited range of color options. Polypropylene is most often used in loop pile carpet constructions.And finally, the third type of fibers used in carpets is polyester. Polyester is also not as resilient as nylon but does have good color clarity and stain & fade resistance.

Natural Fibers

In conjunction with the synthetic fibers, the most common natural fiber used in carpet construction is wool. The majority of wool used in carpets comes from New Zealand, Argentina and the United Kingdom. As wool is a natural fiber, it ranges in color from off-white to black, with many earthen tones between.Although wool does not have the same abrasion and moisture resilience as synthetic fibers, it cleans well and is known to age gracefully. Wool is the most expensive carpet fiber and represents less than one percent of the U.S. carpet market.

How are carpets made?

There are 3 basic steps in the manufacture of carpets:

Step 1: Tufting

Tufting begins with the process of weaving the synthetic or staple fiber into a primary backing material. The primary backing material is usually made of woven polypropylene, and its main purpose is to provide a base cloth to hold the yarn in place while the tufting happens.

The shorter pile heights the more durable the carpet as compared to longer pile heights.
The tufting machine looks like a really big sewing machine.

Step 2: Dying

The second step involves applying the dye to the yarn after the tufting process.

The advantages of all yarn dyeing methods include good side-by-side color consistency, large lot sizes, and uniformity.

Step 3: Finishing

This final process is typically a one-step process that completes the final stage of the carpet construction. In the finishing process, a coating of latex is applied to both the tufted, dyed carpet’s primary backing, and to the secondary backing.

Secondary backing is typically made of a woven synthetic polypropylene material. The coating and the tufted and dyed carpet is squeezed together in a large heated press, where they are held firmly to preserve their shape.

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