Hard-Wearing Carpets

Tough enough for the busiest of families

Hard-wearing is a term used in the flooring industry to describe the performance of flooring. When discussing carpet needs for your home, we would advise that you choose a hardwearing pile for higher or heavier traffic areas of the home. These areas include the hall, stairs, landing and office. However, the term hard-wearing covers twist and loop carpet piles as well as polypropylene and wool content. So what is best for you?

When thinking of recarpeting your hall, stairs, landing, office and sometimes even the lounge, you are looking for a shorter and dense twist pile. A dense pile offers more carpet tufts per square yard. The more tufts used make the carpet more durable, and able to withstand the busy home life. Yet still, look fantastic in many years to come.

Twist pile carpets are also gauged on how many tufts of carpet are entwined together, and you may hear the terms two or three-ply. Ply is simply the number of tufts used – three twisted tufts (three-ply) are more durable than two-ply. The majority of polypropylene carpets will be two-ply. However, wool-content carpets will often be three-ply.

Wool Versus Polypropylene

Wool carpets are far more hard-wearing due to the ability and performance of the natural fibres. However, they are solution dyed in the manufacturing process. Rooms with natural and exposed sunlight will not benefit from wool content, as the UV rays will bleach the carpet colour in time. Polypropylene carpets will be more suited to rooms with large windows. The manufacturing process does not include any dying process, and the yarn contains UV stabilisers.

We then have Loop pile carpets to add to the mix of options available for hardwearing needs. This type of pile shows very little flattening due to the nature of the manufacturing process. The downside, this pile is not suitable for pets’ claws. Loop pile carpets can also be damaged by the type of hoover you have. Why not take a look at our tips regarding hoover types?

There are many different carpets to choose from to cover the areas needing a more hard-wearing pile type. Some of our most popular carpets are Primo Choice Elite, Stainfree Ultra and Malabar. So please pop into our showroom, where we are happy to discuss your needs in length and ensure you are buying the carpet that will stand up to your requirements whilst looking amazing.