Hi people (again)
I'm being given some hand-me-down carpet (hessian-back type) and grippers, and I plan to buy underlay. (and then fit the lot myself, with help from friends, but that's another story)
I like the look of the felt stuff, mainly because my impression is that it's likely to last considerably longer than the crinkly-rubber variety. (I was vaguely guessing 50+ years versus about 20 years - I'm sure someone here can tell me if that's about right or way off.) Haven't had personal experience of the "poly foam" type which I've seen mentioned in archives here, & would welcome comments on the pros & cons of that versus felt, esp w.r.t. longevity.
I was looking at this:
On the one hand I am imagining that the 14mm stuff would feel noticeably more pleasantly squidgy than the 8mm underfoot (though possibly less squidgy than 14mm of the rubber type), as well as obviously better at disguising any slight unevenness of the floorboards. It's also allegedly more durable. If it does feel more squidgy then I quite like that idea, so I was considering getting one of the thicker ones even though it's more expensive. Feedback on the reality of that is welcome. (I realise one possible issue is how much, and how quickly, the felt compresses down over time.)
On the other hand, when I imagine 14mm felt underlay sitting next to ordinary grippers, how that looks to me in imagination is that the grippers might not work very well because the carpet would be sort of held off them on one side by the height of the underlay. My picture of how those grippers are supposed to work is that the underlay comes to about the same height as the gripper wood and the pointy bits stick up above. But I don't recall ever seeing a thing about different thickness gripper wood to match the underlay, or padding underneath the grippers.
So, carpet laying expert people, please clue me in - does this problem exist only in my imagination, or if not, what's the usual solution?
(as usual please feel free to refer me to archives if this has already been discussed - have already been reading back following a search on "underlay", but there's a lot :-) )
I also wonder at what point 8mm-14mm it becomes high enough for the change in level when moving from carpet to non-carpet areas to be annoying. (The carpet currently transitions to cork tiles at one point.) I realise "annoying" in this case is subjective, though, so I'm not really expecting someone else to be able to answer this... but related anecdotes are welcome...
thank you!