How do you tell good carpet from bad carpet?

A bit like buying a mattress, isn't it? Carpet manufacturers used to publish thread counts but stopped doing it the request of retailers who didn't want that information available. Retailers argued that people were comparing thread counts on different types of carpet (berber vs shag for example). You might ask your sales person for the number and see if they will give it to you.

Reply to
Robert Neville
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Sorry - said thread count, but was thinking fiber weight. George's post expressed it far better...

Reply to
Robert Neville

_I_ just (used to) look at the weave density. If I can easily separate the tufts and see the backing I trust I'm looking at crap. Comparing densities should provide a good idea of quality. I don't think they go to the trouble of disguising inferior material with a denser weave, but these days it wouldn't surprise me.

(I assess upholstered furniture first by the arm padding, then by weight.)

Somebody at your house must know how to vacuum. -----

- gpsman

Reply to
gpsman

You shouldn't wash a real area rug in a washing machine, all that tumbling around will place many years of wear on a real carpet...

When carpets are washed by someone who knows what they are doing they are unrolled flat onto a conveyor belt and run through a machine with sprayer heads which spray cleaning solution/rinse water onto the carpet as it passes underneath on the conveyor... It is then blown with warm air to remove excess water and hung to dry on a racking system in a humidity controlled warmed space...

~~ Evan

Reply to
Evan

There was some TV show or other that showed how they cleaned Persian rugs in Persia - with a hose and a push broom!

R
Reply to
RicodJour

The carpet fiber is just fine. It's the glue that holds the fibers to the backing that's disintegrating. I don't vacuum it at all any more 'cause the Hoover sucks up chunks of carpet.

In 37 years, the only contractors that have previously visited have been the roofer. I just had the place weatherized/insulated. I was shocked by the ineptitude of the contractors.

The most glaring example was that the nails holding down the subflooring protruded into the crawl space. They got tired of snagging on them, so they just pounded them back up into the floor. Wonder what happens to the heads when you pound them up?? Duh!!! I'm still finding lumps under the carpet that I have to bang down. That's another reason to go easy on the vacuuming.

I let 'em do stuff that I thought violated basic engineering principles because, "they are experienced and know what they're doing." Most of the stuff they screwed up was stuff they shouldn't have touched at all. After it was done, I regretted not throwing them out the first day. But how do you find someone who is NOT an idiot and takes pride in his work?

After reading the links presented in this thread, I dread the upcoming carpeting fiasco. Nobody is gonna take the time to do all the things set forth in the CRI installation guidelines in one of the links presented earlier in this thread.

Reply to
mike

I'm not talking hand-dyed and hand-tied Persian rugs here. Yeah, I've seen on TOH and other shows how those have to be cleaned. Fortunately, the cost of those is well higher on the food chain than I will ever be.

I was speaking of the basically disposable rugs like you get at BigLots or Kmart, to put near weather doors, beside the bed, at the bottom of the stairs so your feet can 'see' the bottom when your arms are full, that sort of thing. Rugs where if they last five years, they don't owe you anything.

Reply to
aemeijers

Chuckle. When the faux-persian area rug that came with this house in the dining nook gets too nasty, that is about how it will probably get washed. Except I'll use the push broom to clean the bay in the coin-op car wash, lay the rug on its face, and blow the dirt out from the back. When the rinse water runs clear, I'll flip it over and float out any debris. Only part I haven't figured out yet is how to get it home. Maybe I'll get lucky and score a cheap pressure washer on craigs list.

Reply to
aemeijers

I managed to get a really nice Chinese-made "Persian" rug off Craigslist for something like $900 for my living room. I defy anyone to tell the difference between it and the real deal. Sometimes you get lucky. Love walking on it in bare feet, too.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

That wouldn't necessarily be the best way to do it. That might just be the only way they thought of to do it, the successor to a bucket from the stream. IIRC, real Persian carpets are made by children instead of going to school, and when the Shah was in charge, he insisted that children go to school and the supply of authentic, hand-made Persian rugs dropped substantially and the price went up a lot. (Was that when the cheap machine made imitations started showing up? I don't know.)

After he was overthown around 1976, the ibbydibbydawb folks permitted child labor again, and while in some cities life is pretty modern for many, I think in parts of Iran it's still like the 15th century.

That's a pretty good idea. Probably most of the bays are oil-free. Go to a place near home. Put a plastic sheet or just a blanket on your roof and drape the carpet over the roof, folding as many times as needed. Tie it on especially at the front and drive slowly. Since it's wet, I think the tail end won't flap in the breeze much, but you could have someone in a chase car blow his horn if there's trouble. (Wait. You guys probably have those thiggermajigs, sellfones.) Or you could just stop periodically, get out, and see if it's flappying. Oh yeah, close the car windows or you'll have local dirt and essence of persian child dripping in your windows. Wait, yours is faux-persional so your okay on the second one.

Maybe

Reply to
mm

Quality of work is the second reason to do-it-yourself (the first is cost).

I suspect the third reason for DIY is the pleasure of the effort and the pride in the result.

You might consider carpet tiles.

A few days after Hurricane Yikes, I scored about 2000 sq ft of 2x2 carpet tiles. A store in which they were installed suffered a wet floor and used that as an excuse to have their insurance pay for new carpeting.

For about half the tiles, evidently fixtures were sitting atop them for some years and they had no wear at all. Checking the manufacturer's number on the back, I discovered these commercial, heavy wear, carpet tiles retailed for about $40/yd!

Anyway, with some glue I've carpeted the library in my home and the office snack-bar. Looks swell and will last forever.

Point is, carpet tiles were a trivial DIY project.

Reply to
HeyBub

The advice that page seems to be highlighting is:

"If you don't know Carpet, know your Carpet dealer"

I'm sorry, but that's really useless advice. What am I supposed to do, invite the carpet dealer to dinner, start playing golf with him, make him my new best friend?

I came to that page to "know carpet". If it's not going to tell me anything really useful about carpet, then WTF?

Reply to
Sum Guy

e:

I simply bought two big rubber-backed bath rugs at Bedbugs Beyond. Once a week I throw them in the washer and dryer. (Actually, I have two sets, so each set is washed every other week.)

Of course, it helps that the bathroom is only 5' by 10'. The vanity, tub, and toilet take up most of the floor, so those two rugs cover almost all of what's left.

One of the advantages of owning a modest post-war ranch: less to clean.

Cindy Hamilton

Reply to
Cindy Hamilton

ote:

If it is, the wrong tile was used.

Our master bath in the previous house was carpeted. It actually wasn't bad when I ripped it out. It was there at least fifteen years when I did it. Carpet in the bathroom is still a dumb idea.

That's what we do. One in front of the shower and each sink, and a shaped one under the commode ; where the feet go.

Tile is easy. Less isn't less work. The additional sink, tub, and shower are.

Reply to
keith

Less floor area is less to clean. Why should I clean a 10' x 10' bathroom with a vanity, tub, and toilet when I can clean a 5x10 one? (Additional?) Shoot, come to think of it, it's probably

5x9, not 5x10, since it's no deeper than the kitchen.

Here's a picture:

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the way, that's not our stuff; we took this picture when walking through it prior to buying)

Same holds for the 9x9 kitchen (which, frankly, I wish was a little larger), the 9x9 dining room, and the relatively modest

14x23 living room (no family room). Overall, I like a small house.

It's cheap to heat, too.

Cindy Hamilton

Reply to
Cindy Hamilton

The point is that a 10x15 bathroom floor is no more difficult to clean than a 5x10. The tools are the same (better/professional tools are actually easier to use) and the obstacles are the same. Open floor space is *easy* to clean. The commode and other obstacles (heaven forbid, a pedestal sink) that takes the work and the overhead of getting the cleaning supplies out and put back away is pretty much a constant.

I don't. We like space (3BR - 3.5Bath - 2600ft^2 - 2 people).

Heat is cheap.

Reply to
keith

I'd rather clean 50 square feet than 150 square feet (minus the obstacles).

3 BR, 1 bath, 1200ft^2, 2 people

(Actually, I would like another half bath. But a little courtesy and consideration makes things work fairly smoothly. For the first few years of my life it was 3 BR, 1 bath, about 700 ft^2,

4 adults and 1 child.)

Depends where you live.

I think what we've demonstrated here, though, is that tastes (and priorities) vary.

Cindy

Reply to
Cindy Hamilton

Again, outside the obstacles and the overhead of the tools, the area is insignificant. It takes perhaps 30 seconds to wash the bathroom floor, no matter what size it is. It takes significantly more time to clean around the commode, though even that is small compared to other areas.

We didn't always have this much space either, which is perhaps why we enjoy it now. I don't want anything bigger, though. We did look at a couple of 3500ft^2 houses. I nixxed them. I had no idea what we'd put in the space. ;-)

Alabama, but we make up for the mild winters with the AC in the summer. It's still cheap compared to the other expenses of owning a house.

Certainly. That's why they make big houses, small houses, and I suppose someone out there even likes condos. ;-)

Reply to
keith

How's the search for the 30% to 50% wastage link going, keith? I have an apology all ready to go whenever you are. :)

R

PS I'm just tweaking you - don't take it personally.

Reply to
RicodJour

There's a lot of info in there, but his site navigation is the pits. The stuff is hidden in drop down menus. Did you read the section on carpet scams?

R
Reply to
RicodJour

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