Which carpet should I buy, and what do the specifications mean?
Fibre, construction and density decide how a carpet performs, and only one of those three is visible in a showroom. What to ask for, and what the numbers on the back of the sample actually mean.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 25 min
- Read
- 3 min
Short answer
Three things decide a carpet: what the fibre is, how the pile is constructed, and how densely it is packed. For most UK homes a wool-rich or good polypropylene twist pile at a decent density is the sensible answer. Density is the one you can test yourself — bend the sample back and see how much backing shows.
Carpet is sold on colour and price, and it fails on density and fibre. A cheap carpet in the right colour will look tired in a hallway within two years, and the reason is almost always that there is not enough fibre in it. Learning three specifications takes ten minutes and changes what you buy.
Step by step
- Test density with your hands, not the label.Bend the sample sharply backwards. The more backing you can see between the tufts, the less fibre there is and the sooner it will flatten. This one test tells you more than any marketing description.
- Choose the fibre for how the room is used.Wool is resilient, naturally soil-resistant, flame-retardant and expensive, and it recovers its pile well. Polypropylene is cheap, completely stain-resistant to most things including bleach, and flattens more readily. Polyamide, or nylon, is the most hardwearing synthetic and the best compromise for heavy traffic. Polyester is soft and cheap and crushes.
- Consider a wool blend rather than pure wool.A blend of wool with a synthetic — commonly around eighty per cent wool — gives most of the resilience and appearance of wool with better wear and a lower price. It is the standard recommendation for a reason.
- Choose the construction for the room.Twist pile — cut tufts, twisted and heat-set — is the general-purpose choice and hides footmarks well. Loop pile is very hardwearing and shows tracking less, but a snagged loop runs and it is a poor choice with cats. Saxony and deep pile are luxurious in a bedroom and look permanently trampled in a hallway. Velvet and plush show every footprint.
- Read the wear rating for the intended room.Carpets are graded for light, general, heavy and extra-heavy domestic use. Buying a light-domestic carpet for a hall because the colour was right is the most common and most expensive mistake here.
- Check the backing.Hessian backing is traditional and works with all fitting methods. Action or synthetic backing is cheaper and fine for most rooms. Felt-backed carpet is fitted differently — usually stuck down rather than stretched — and cannot be used with gripper in the same way.
- Ask about the width.Carpet comes in standard roll widths, usually around four and five metres. A room a little wider than the roll needs a seam, and that changes both the price and where the join lands. Ask before you fall in love with a carpet only made in the wrong width.
- Match the colour to reality.Very pale and very dark carpets both show everything — one shows dirt, the other shows fluff and pet hair. Flecked and heather mixes hide both, which is why they persist in halls and stairs.
- Budget for underlay separately and properly.Underlay affects how the carpet feels, how long it lasts and how warm and quiet the room is, and it is where cheap quotes cut corners. A better underlay under a mid-range carpet outperforms a good carpet on a poor one.
Questions people ask
Is wool worth the extra?
In a room where the carpet is looked at and walked on for years, yes — it recovers from crushing, resists soiling and looks better for longer. In a bathroom, a utility, a rental or anywhere bleach might be used, polypropylene is the more sensible material.
What about stain-resistant treatments?
Applied treatments genuinely help and they wear off. Solution-dyed polypropylene is inherently stain-resistant because the colour is in the fibre, which is a permanent property rather than a coating.
Can I put a bedroom carpet on the stairs?
Usually not. Stairs concentrate wear on the nosing of every tread and need a hardwearing, dense, short pile. There is a separate guide on stair carpet.
How long should a carpet last?
A good carpet correctly specified for the room, on a proper underlay, and vacuumed regularly, should be a ten to fifteen year item in a living room. In a hall it is less. An under-specified carpet in a hall can look worn in two.