Carpet Makes a Welcome Addition to Your Home
With so many types of flooring to choose from, it can be difficult to determine the one that’s right for you. Carpet offers a variety of benefits you simply can’t achieve with other flooring options. Read below to understand many of the unique ways you can add beauty, performance, comfort, value, safety, and sustainability to your home with carpet.
Carpet Improves Indoor Air Quality
New carpet is one of the lowest volatile organic compound (VOC)-emitting flooring choice available. Different from hard floors, carpet acts as a passive air filter, trapping dust, pollen, and particles and, therefore, removing them from the breathing zone. Studies have shown that people with asthma and allergy problems have seen symptoms improve with carpet.
Carpet Provides Warmth and Comfort
Carpet provides thermal insulation and resistance, or R-value. In colder climates or seasons, carpet retains warm air longer than other flooring types. In addition to keeping your home cozy in the winter, this attribute conserves energy. Carpet also provides a comfortable place to sit, play, or work and gives a room an overall warmer feeling.
Carpet Softens Slips and Falls
Carpet provides safety protection for the whole family, including toddlers, older individuals, and pets. Carpet cushions our footsteps, reduces the likelihood of slips and falls, and minimizes injuries when falls do occur.
Carpet Reduces Noise
Big screen TVs, speaker phones, computers, and sound systems make our homes noisy places. Carpet helps to absorb these sounds, making it easier to work, learn, and sleep. Adding a cushion pad beneath your carpet reduces noise even further. Carpet also works as a sound barrier between floors by helping to block sound transmission to rooms below. Carpet on stairs dampens the sound of foot traffic too.
Carpet Improves Indoor Air Quality
New carpet is one of the lowest volatile organic compound (VOC)-emitting flooring choice available. Different from hard floors, carpet acts as a passive air filter, trapping dust, pollen, and particles and, therefore, removing them from the breathing zone. Studies have shown that people with asthma and allergy problems have seen symptoms improve with carpet.
Carpet Provides Warmth and Comfort
Carpet provides thermal insulation and resistance, or R-value. In colder climates or seasons, carpet retains warm air longer than other flooring types. In addition to keeping your home cozy in the winter, this attribute conserves energy. Carpet also provides a comfortable place to sit, play, or work and gives a room an overall warmer feeling.
Carpet Softens Slips and Falls
Carpet provides safety protection for the whole family, including toddlers, older individuals, and pets. Carpet cushions our footsteps, reduces the likelihood of slips and falls, and minimizes injuries when falls do occur.
Carpet Reduces Noise
Big screen TVs, speaker phones, computers, and sound systems make our homes noisy places. Carpet helps to absorb these sounds, making it easier to work, learn, and sleep. Adding a cushion pad beneath your carpet reduces noise even further. Carpet also works as a sound barrier between floors by helping to block sound transmission to rooms below. Carpet on stairs dampens the sound of foot traffic.
Carpet Adds Beauty and Style
Depending on the look you want to achieve, carpet can be a neutral foundation or a focal point with vibrant colors, bold patterns, and interesting textures. Your ultimate choice reflects how you want to personalize your living space. With thousands of carpet styles and colors to choose from, the possibilities are endless!
Indoor Air Quality
Clean the Air
Gravity causes common household particles, such as dust, pollen, and pet and insect dander, to fall to the floor. Carpet traps particles, removes them from the breathing zone, and reduces their circulation in the air. Proper cleaning with CRI-approved vacuums effectively removes dust and allergens from the carpet and keeps them out of the air we breathe.
How Carpet Impacts Asthma and Allergies
Studies have shown that properly cleaned carpet is the best flooring choice for those dealing with asthma and allergies. The studies explain that effectively cleaned carpets can trap allergens and other particles, resulting in fewer particles escaping into the air.
Misperceptions of Mold and VOCs
When carpet is kept clean and dry, mold simply cannot grow on its synthetic fibers. Additionally, carpet is one of the lowest emitters of VOCs among various flooring choices and interior finishes. The Carpet and Rug Institute’s Green Label Plus program identifies carpet, adhesive, and cushion products that meet or exceed government indoor air quality regulations and represent the lowest emitting products on the market.
Environmental Benefits
Carpet is a Sustainable Choice
The carpet industry is committed to minimizing carpet’s impact on the environment. When carpet reaches the end of its long life, it is reused to make new carpet or is recycled into a variety of products including roofing shingles, railroad ties, and automotive parts. Today’s carpets are environmentally friendly, engineered to resist staining and fading, and withstand even heavy foot traffic.
Following NSF/ANSI 140
NSF/ANSI 140 is the sustainability assessment for carpet, or the standard, by which designers, facility managers, and government purchasers can evaluate and certify its sustainability. The carpet industry has made significant progress in reducing the environmental footprint of carpet including landfill diversion, carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption, waste generation, water usage, and hazardous air pollutants in the production of carpet.
Taking Extra CARE
Carpet is a Sustainable Choice
The carpet industry is committed to minimizing carpet’s impact on the environment. When carpet reaches the end of its long life, it is reused to make new carpet or is recycled into a variety of products including roofing shingles, railroad ties, and automotive parts. Today’s carpets are environmentally friendly, engineered to resist staining and fading, and withstand even heavy foot traffic.
Taking Extra CARE
The Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) aims to advance market-based solutions that increase landfill diversion and recycling of post-consumer carpet, encourage design for recyclability, and meet meaningful goals. With over 400 industry members, CARE has helped divert more than 4 billion pounds of carpet from landfills since the group organized in 2002.
Following NSF/ANSI 140
NSF/ANSI 140 is the sustainability assessment for carpet, or the standard by which designers, facility managers, and government purchasers can evaluate and certify its sustainability. The carpet industry has made significant progress in reducing the environmental footprint of carpet including landfill diversion, carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption, waste generation, water usage, and hazardous air pollutants in the production of carpet.
