How To Choose A Carpet

Expectations

When we receive an enquiry on new carpets, one of the first requirements customers have is for it to be "hard wearing". Hard wearing means different things to different people, some just mean they dont want the carpet to wear through completely to the backing, and others want a carpet that looks like brand new for 10 years.

Its important to manage our customers expectations of what theyre purchasing so we always ask what their expectations are before selecting samples to show them. This helps us narrow down what samples we show so we dont overwhelm with choice.

Materials

The next thing to consider are colours, material, design and price points. Loop piles are generally the most hard wearing, with wool twists, polypropylene twists and Saxony's following in that order.

Loop piles should be avoided if you have mischievous pets as the way they are constructed makes it easy for them to pull an entire line of carpet thread out pretty quickly.

Loop pile

Wool twist, while usually more expensive than polypropylene, are a great insulator and harder wearing, they also purify the air due to the wool fibre absorbing common air pollutants such as formaldehyde, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide (known as VOC's, volatile organic compounds).

What are VOCS?

Wool Twist

Saxony's feel soft underfoot and are good for bedrooms but they're not really suitable for high traffic areas despite what manufacturers may claim, they have a low pile density which causes them to flatten much faster than a dense twist.

Saxony

Colour & Designs

Colours should definitely be at the top of the agenda when selecting a carpet, if you have young kids and pets then white carpets probably aren't for you.

Patterned carpets are trending as of 2025, but a few things to consider if going down this route is how old your property is, deviations in walls and floors will really be highlighted by some patterns and is something to consider.

Stripes and patterns also wont line up when making turns around winding stairs without a lot of extra labour which involves splitting the stripes individually and then bending them around the step. This also requires a high quality carpet to be used.

Lastly, not every sample range has a range of colours with most sticking to neutrals so keep that in mind.

Sizes & House Layout

Most Carpets come in either 4 or 5 metre widths, if you had a 3x3 room you would have to order a 3x4 and have some spare. An efficient way to look at this is that a 1x3m spare is actually half a straight staircase of carpet, so you could be more efficient and pay a bit extra ordering a 3x5 for a full flight of stairs worth of carpet. This is just an example but is one of many reasons why a professional visit and measure is valuable.

If you have a room thats 5.5x5.5m, somewhere in that room youre going to require a join, this needs to be planned carefully to make sure it lands in the most suitable place and you have enough carpet to do the join.

Carpets have a pile direction so if you dont plan it correctly and end up with the join piece running a different direction then this will exaggerate the join and make it stand out.

Maintaining Your Carpet

Most carpets dont like to be scrubbed hard but this is especially true for wool carpets where even a light scrub can discolour or change the texture and look (think of a woolly jumper).

I find the best way to clean spills is to soak up the spillage with kitchen towel, if needed then apply some water to dilute the stain and then use kitchen towel to soak up again until the stain is gone. Rarely does anything need to be scrubbed.

Carpets should be vacuumed regularly to prevent dirt becoming trapped inside the carpet pile, this is best done with vacuums that use a beater bar however a beater bar should not be used on wool carpets and Berbers.

Maintenance will be explained at the end of our jobs but please feel free to ask questions.