Carpets are the most beneficial floor coverings in the world because of the beauty, comfort, quietness and safety; providing a slip resistant surface which is particularly important for vulnerable groups (the elderly, young children and pets). With the wide range of carpet available, there is a solution for practically every budget and décor need.
Creating the Look
You can choose from many carpet styles and colors. Your ultimate choice will reflect how you want to personalize your living space. It can be a neutral foundation or a focal point with vibrant colors and stronger bolder patterns and textures. Carpets add beauty and style to your place.
Improving Indoor Air Quality
Contrary to urban myth, carpet makes a very positive contribution to human health and wellbeing. It actually acts as a passive air filter, trapping dust, pollen and other particles and removing them from the breathing zone. Well maintained carpet also helps purify the air by reducing indoor pollutants that can trigger allergy and asthma in sensitized people. Carpet’s pile surface traps airborne dust containing allergens and absorbs contaminants from inside and outside the building, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
A major study by the German Asthma and Allergy Society (DAAB) found that wall to wall carpet reduced dust in the air to half that found above hard flooring surfaces. The researchers concluded that for particularly sensitive persons already suffering from previous damage to their airways, the selection of a flooring material that binds dust and does not emit it to the air to be breathed is an essential preventative aspect.
Carpet has the lowest volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions of common flooring choices. In fact, it’s one of the lowest emitting products used in new construction and renovation. What VOCs new carpet emits are short-lived and largely dissipate within 24 to 48 hours – even faster with fresh air ventilation.
Providing Warmth and Comfort
Experience the feeling of warmth and inclusion with soft cushioning and underfoot comfort. Carpet also provides a comfortable place to sit, play or work and gives a room an overall warmer feeling. Carpet provides actual thermal resistance, or R-value. People feel comfortable in a carpeted room even if the temperature is a few degrees lower than in a non-carpeted room.
Carpet is an exceptionally good thermal insulator. The insulation value of carpet is similar to fibreglass insulation and can be up to ten times higher than that of other floor coverings. Further increases in thermal insulation are obtained when carpet is installed over underlay.
Carpet can help to significantly reduce energy costs in heating and cooling, and hence greenhouse gas emissions, when there is a temperature differential between the indoor air and that under the floor. Uninsulated floors account for 10 to 20% of heat loss from a home.
Reducing Noise
Big screen TVs, speaker phones, computers and modern sound systems make our homes noisy places. Carpet helps absorb these sounds. Adding a cushion pad beneath your carpet reduces noise even further. Carpet also works as a sound barrier between floors by helping to block sound transmission to rooms below. And carpet on stairs helps mask the sound of constant foot traffic. Carpet is significantly more efficient at reducing noise, compared with other flooring. So everyone from employees to students gets a quieter, less distracting environment where they hear more, concentrate better and perform their best.
Carpet and underlay also help to control sound reverberation, the term used to describe the degree to which sound lives on within a room. Reverberant homes are generally noisy and ‘echoey’ places where speech communication, particularly over the phone, is difficult.
The installation of carpet and underlay will bring long reverberation times down to acceptable levels. While there are other sound absorption alternatives such as acoustic ceiling tiles and panels, they do not reduce floor impacts and for this reason cannot achieve the same overall reduction in noise levels. Noise attenuation is yet another reason why carpet is an excellent floor covering choice where functionality and fashion are important.
Putting You On Safer Ground
Carpet, an inherently slip resistant floor covering, reduces both the risk of accidents due to slips and falls, and the likelihood of serious injury when slips and falls occur. For small children, carpet cushions the falls that come with learning to crawl or walk. For the elderly, slippery hard surfaces can be extremely hazardous. Carpet matched with a good underlay gives the best possible protection against serious injury resulting from slips and falls in the home.