Our Guide To Carpet
Carpet has longstanding been a favourite floor covering option for New Zealand homes. It is hard to go past the warmth, insulation and comfort that only carpet can provide, especially on chilly winter mornings. We've put together a list of common characteristics of carpet as well as frequently asked questions on the subject to help you decide if carpet is the right choice for you.
Style
At Flooring Xtra we understand that choosing carpet can be confusing. Today there are so many styles, colours, and fibres to select from. When considering quality, fibre type, weight, tightness of the stitching and pile height are all factors that will affect a carpet’s performance. However generally the heavier the weight the higher the price and the more plush and comfortable it will feel underfoot. When walking across some types of carpet, you may notice footprints being left behind or marks from the vacuum cleaner, this is extremely common and known as ‘tracking’.
Plush, shaggy or extremely soft carpets tend to be the worst offenders, but all cut pile carpets may show tracking. Tracking can range from either slightly noticeable to very apparent, depending on the texture and resilience of the carpet fibre. The imprints left behind will constantly change as you live your life on the carpet and are a visual feature which people tend to either love or hate. Not a fan? Select a shorter pile or a loop pile carpet.
Remember, no carpet is bullet proof! All carpets require regular cleaning and maintenance to keep them looking their best and to ensure longevity. The most popular yarn styles include the following:
Cut Pile
The most common and popular style for residential households, cut pile carpets are soft underfoot and durable, providing a great base to live on. As there are no loops to get caught on and pulled, it is a good option for homes with pets. Cut pile carpets come in a multitude of styles; they can have a long pile length for a retro, shag-like look, or a short pile length for low maintenance.
Loop Pile
A loop pile carpet is made by forming a loop in the thread. This style of carpet is hard wearing, durable and doesn’t tend to show tracking (footprints) as you will often find with other carpet styles. Loop twills are made by blending different colour yarns, making them better for wear with high traffic.
Textured
Textured carpets are a type of loop pile carpet. Usually made using a single colour, carpet manufacturers continually work on developments to maintain a contemporary look for this type of carpet. Designs range from high and low thread ups, to level loops.
Plush
A plush carpet is a type of carpet characterised by its smooth, dense pile that feels soft and luxurious underfoot. The pile is made from tightly packed fibres that stand upright, creating a thick, even surface. Plush styles are the most common carpet to show tracking (footprints).
Fibres
Carpet provides comfort to the home environment like no other flooring type can. The softness of carpet underfoot is second to none, it's friendly on tired joints, kids taking their first wobbly steps and it's also more enjoyable for children to play on, especially when the carpet is teamed with a good underlay. Carpet can help improve a home's heat insulation, particularly when paired with a dense, quality underlay.
Well-insulated homes are more comfortable, healthier and friendlier on the pocket due to reduced long-term heating costs. It is important to note that carpet has the potential to fade, particularly wool carpet. New Zealand has harsh UV exposure, and this coupled with our large windows and doors that let plenty of light in, means there is potential for carpet to fade.
If you know your carpet will be exposed to prolonged periods of intense sunlight, a solution-dyed synthetic carpet maybe the best option, their fibres are coloured right through (like a carrot rather than a radish), reducing your risk of colour fade.
Wool
Wool makes an excellent loop, texture and plush carpet. The best quality wool is from New Zealand. Wool naturally resists general soiling, crushing, and most stains. Wool has inherent fire retardant and anti-allergenic fibre. The soft look and rich feel of wool is still unmatched by any man-made fibre, and may be more affordable than you think.
Wool is a luxurious fibre, renowned for its resilience, durability and long-lasting appearance retention. It is important to know that Wool carpet when exposed to a large amount of sunlight has the potential to fade.
Solution Dyed Nylon
Solution Dyed Nylon carpets offer good fade and stain resistance. For this reason, they are a popular choice for young families. These carpets are constructed using man-made petroleum based fibres. Yarn memory ensures cut pile carpets hold their twist, meaning that with correct maintenance the carpet will look as impressive in years to come as the day it was laid.
Polyester
A less expensive synthetic fibre, with good colourfastness properties when solution dyed. Polyester carpets are soft to touch and pleasant underfoot. This fibre type is most suited to low-traffic areas within the home as it will crush (it is not as resilient as other fibres), making it wear quicker than other man-made fibres.
Caring for your carpet
Our carpet manufacturers provide care and cleaning instructions with their products. Please always refer to the manufacturer’s instructions prior to cleaning your new carpet. We've put together a general guide below to help you care, clean and maintain your carpet.
Carpet Joins & Footprints
Carpet is normally sold in is 3.66m wide rolls, and occasionally 4m wide rolls, so if the width of your room is greater than 3.66m you will require two or more widths of carpet to be installed and therefore, a join(s) to be present.
If all living areas and bedrooms were no more than 3.66m wide, you would never need a join and if hallways were 3.66m wide (and we did away with wardrobes) you would never have any waste! We all know this is not practical and each job not only has carpet offcuts (which we can turn into mats) each installation can have the carpet running 'North to South' or 'East to West'.
The direction you choose to run your carpet in will not only affect the look of your room, but also the amount of carpet you’ll need to purchase. Our recommendation is almost always to promote a premium finish (this is a finish with as few joins as possible) particularly when textured or patterned carpets are being installed. A premium finish tends to use more carpet however a better overall look will be achieved.
With some carpets (such as cut pile styles), joins can be virtually invisible while with others joins may be slightly more noticeable. Carpets are joined using a special heat-bond tape and a seam iron. The thickness of the heat-bond tape can sometimes cause carpet seams to peak by 2-3mm, but this should settle down over time as the seam beds into the underlay below. To ensure seams are not obvious, we recommend they are positioned in an as ‘out of the way’ place as possible, away from direct light sources such as windows or sliding doors. Some rooms may not have an ideal location to place a seam so compromise may be required.
In the diagrams below, we illustrate three different approaches to how carpet can be laid and seams placed to help you better understand the impact different techniques can have on a room and the quantity of carpet required:
Worst — A Patchwork Quilt
Better — Some Joins
Best — Less Joins
If requested, we can quote an installation that uses as little carpet as possible and more joins, but this is not preferred as it can result in a ‘patchwork quilt’ result. When comparing pricing between quotes, you may find that a lower priced quote uses less carpet but requires more joins and therefore has a less desirable finish. Don’t be afraid to ask the flooring companies you’re working with to show you a floor plan with the joins marked on it, to help you compare apples with apples. We invite customers to sign off a ‘cutting plan’ prior to the commencement of their installation to ensure they’re happy with the join placement, as second thoughts around where these are located are not covered under the Consumer Guarantees Act.
Walking across some types of carpet you may notice footprints being left behind or marks from the vacuum cleaner brush and its wheels. Marks left from traffic moving across the carpet is extremely common and is commonly known as ‘shading’. Plush or shaggy carpets tend to be the worst offenders but many cut pile carpets are also prone to shading. Often deeper and thicker piled carpets or carpets that are particularly soft and smooth, show shading. Shading can range from either slightly noticeable to very apparent, depending on the texture and resilience of the carpet fibre. The same factors also apply for how long shading marks last as it can be a few hours or days. These imprints left behind in carpet is not a defect or a fault in either manufacturing or installation of the product, but a visual feature of the carpet. Some people like the look of shading and others simply hate it.
Carpet Stretching
Carpet, like other textile products (such as a pairof jeans or a t-shirt), is known to stretch. You can spot a carpet that needs are-stretch by the visual looseness and ‘bagginess’ of the carpet. It will lookmore relaxed than when it was first installed. Other tell-tale signs are whatcan be described as ‘waves’ in the carpet. These ripples and wrinkles are created when the stretched carpet bunches in one area due to traffic across the floor. It is important to have your carpet re-stretched as soon as you notice these symptoms as constant traffic over these carpet ‘waves’ will lead to the flooring wearing down unevenly in these areas causing permanent damage.
Re-stretching carpet is considered a regular part of carpet maintenance, similar to vacuuming and steam cleaning if appropriate for the fibre type. Carpet re-stretching may need to be carried out as soon as 2 years from when your carpet was installed. Carpet requiring re-stretching outside of this period is not an installation fault, rather a characteristic of the flooring.
There are a number of variables involved that lead to carpet stretching faster in some homes than others. The four most common reasons are:
Temperature & Humidity
These are some of the major contributors to carpet buckling. The moisture in a humid environment will cause the carpet to swell and stretch.
Excessive Wear
Due to traffic, particularly if wheelchairs, walkers, kid’s tricycles etc. are moving across the floor. Sliding heavy furniture across carpet can create ripples or separate the carpet from the smooth-edge (nailed tacks) around the perimeter of the room that holds the carpet in place. We recommend that you lift furniture rather than slide it, to avoid damage.
Incorrect Underlay
Improper selection of carpet underlay can have an impact on the carpet wearing and stretching. Having no underlay or underlay that is very thin, may not provide enough grip for the traffic moving across the carpet leading to increased movement and stretching.
Appearance
Carpet Flattening
Overtime you may notice your carpet starting to flatten in certain areas, in particular high traffic zones. Hallways, doorways and main pathways throughout your home that are constantly walked on, may show signs of wear before other areas of your carpet. The change of appearance will be due to the carpets pile flattening or a change in the direction of the carpet fibres due to the frequent traffic moving across this area of carpet.
All carpets will be subject to this at some point in their lifecycles, although some carpets are more resistant than others. If flattening and high traffic in your home is a concern, steer clear of polypropylene carpets or extremely soft to touch carpets as they are thought to flatten earlier and not have such a ‘bounce back’ ability.
Carpet flattening can also occur when furniture is placed on carpet for a period of time, leaving imprints when moved. Some customers have success removing these dents by placing an ice cube on the dent and letting it melt. After the ice cube is melted, fluff up the carpet pile with your finger, fork or a toothbrush to make it stand up again. Use a cloth to soak up the excess moisture by dabbing the carpet softly. We recommend you colour test in an inconspicuous area first (i.e. inside a wardrobe).
Pile Reversal
Cut pile carpets (including plush/shaggy pile carpets) can have a stunning appearance, however some tend to develop pile reversal (also known as tracking, shading, pooling or watermarking). Pile reversal changes the appearance of some areas of a carpet and is best described as if water has been spilt on the carpet/pooling of water on the carpet. In instances of pile reversal, areas of the carpet appear to become lighter or darker than the surrounding area, depending on the angles from which they are viewed.
What is happening to cause this is a change to the direction in which the pile naturally sits.
The appearance of shading then occurs because light catches differently on the greater surface area of carpet to the side of the bending fibres facing a different direction. The cause of this phenomenon are not understood and cannot be predicted or prevented. Pile reversal does not affect the wear or durability of the carpet and is beyond the control of the manufacturer or installer and is therefore not considered a defect or manufacturing fault, but an inherent fibre characteristic.
This is corroborated by The Carpet and Rug Institute, and further reading on this topic can be found in their manual titled ‘Pile Reversal (Shading, Water Marking)’.
Although this phenomenon is relatively rare, it is important to be aware of the potential risk of this occurring on your installation. If you wish to reduce your exposure of having this happen in your home, consider loop pile or textured/patterned carpet styles.
