Why do people use carpeting in their homes?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Aesthetics aside, I fail to find many practical reasons for the use of “wall-to-wall” carpeting. However, I’ll list the few practical purposes that come to mind.

[ul]
[li]insulation against sound, vibration, and low temperatures[/li][li]hiding / protecting hardwood flooring that you intend to preserve and / or eventually restore[/li][li]comfort for bare / stocking feet, walking, and small children.[/li][li]cost[/li][/ul]

Are there more **practical ** reasons to use complete carpeting?

(OTOH, Area rugs and mats seem to have much more practicality, IMHO.)

I am not the germophobe type, but carpeting is a formidable haven and breeding ground for infinite forms of nastiness. I think it’s safe to speculate that even the most powerful carpet shampooing devices won’t remove and destroy 100% of said atrocities.

Hard flooring materials just seem more practical, to me. Of course, I realize that hard flooring is not going to reach “sterility” upon cleaning, either. I do assume that hard flooring can become much cleaner than carpeting, though.

It would be interesting to know the percentage of cleanliness that the various types of floor coverings can achieve, via comparitive analysis: e.g. ceramic tile vs. hardwood vs. vinyl / linoleum vs. carpeting, etc. I’m not sure what precise method of measure would be used. Hypothetically speaking, something like “x” amount of bacteria, mold, debris, etc. per “y” amount of space.

I live in a 77 year old home that has hardwood flooring. I think it’s much more elegant than any carpeting, but that’s just my personal preference.

I do note that hardwood flooring is supposed to be a big plus when selling a home. If we have any real estate people here, you may correct me / back me up on this note.

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You said it, not me. Moved.

:stuck_out_tongue:

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3

Hardwood flooring is indeed considered a big plus when selling your place, but I hate it. I find it ugly, cold and uncomfortable, and it develops scratches the moment you so much as consider moving a piece of furniture a short distance. That’s why I carpeted the living room in my apartment. Best damn thing I ever did.*

[sub]*Well, in the area of interior decorating anyway.[/sub]

4

Just my WAG, but w2w carpeting is considerably less expensive than many other floor coverings, not only in material costs, but installation labor as well. It is also far more forgiving of flaws in the base floor material, especially concrete. To apply tile or hardwood to concrete floors, the floors have to be level and free of cracks or voids. Carpeting is also relatively easy to replace if you want a new color or texture. Lastly, excepting stains, carpeting is fairly easy to care for. Vacuuming is quicker and easier than sweeping and mopping.

I am in complete agreement that a hardwood floor with a few rugs is vastly superior to carpeting, especially esthetically, but the expense of installation and maintenance put it out of reach for many homes.

5

Another benefit that carpeting would have is it makes the floor softer. No really, check it out, carpeted floors are softer than hard floors. Granted, rugs and mats can have a similar effect.

It occurs to me that hardwood floors, being made from wood, would be by their very nature porous and thus also hard to clean for similar reasons that carpet would be. Not sure what difference that waxing has (possibly a big one).

I think houses with hardwood floors look nicer, but many people just prefer carpet, especially if you have kids and/or dogs running around (we used to have a dog who would go running accross the hardwood floor, then loose control, skidding before running into a wall or a piece of furniture and running into the next room. SkikkityskikkityskikkityskhhhhhhTHUMP. Carpeting is just more condusive to sudden stops or changes in direction if you’re in a hurry and covered with fur.

6

Why is that a minus and not a plus?

7

When it’s people who are skidding and stopping at walls. Particularly young people.

I don’t like wall-to-wall carpeting because cleaning it is such a problem, but area rugs are great–warm, soft, and safe. Particularly if like me you eschew chairs and live on the floor.

8

who wants to have sex on a wood floor?

9

This is the first home I’ve lived in with exposed hardwood flooring. At first, I thought it was great, but now (3 years later) I can’t wait to get carpeting. Wood floors look great-- if you like to vacuum, mop & wax once a week. It’s cold, hard and it hurts a lot more if you fall. And if you have pets, hair drifts from one room to another as you walk by. Carpet is just better if you’re a lazy housekeeper like me.

10

We have tile throughout our house, except for the bedrooms, where we have vinyl. I can tell you that it shows the dirt and sand more, which means we sweep and mop more often. Kind of makes you wonder just what is lurking in between those carpet fibers? :eek:

11

Our old house was carpeted. We didn’t like it. It was always seemed to be dirty and stinky.

We now live in a log house with 0% carpeting. We love it.

12

I hate walking on hard floors when their dirty. It just feels so icky. But i don’t mind walking on dirty carpeted floors because all the dirt is hidden in the fibers.

As people have said above, carpet’s great for lazy housekeepers because it hides the dirt. If that’s not practical enough for me, then I don’t know what is.

13
      • In the US, wall-to-wall carpeting used to be seen as a luxury item but it became popular in downscale homes during the 70’s and 80’s because at some point contractors realized that it was cheaper to cover a bad hardwood floor with carpeting than it was to re-do the bad hardwood floor.
  • By far, the main problem with wall-to-wall carpeting is that it gets dirty and there is no effective way to clean it well.
    ~
14

Carpet is just so gross. When we pulled up the carpeting in our house to install Pergo, I was really grossed out at what was underneath. We had a great vaccuum and used it, but there was still tons of dirt and you could see all the pet stains (the ones we knew about and ones that must have been there before we bought the house) even though we had cleaned the carpets with a steamer.

Hardwood or laminate with area rugs is the only way for me now.

15

After living with w2w carpet all my life (and for over 7 yrs with young children) my wife and I just bought a new house which had hardwood underneath some ugly-ass carpet. We bought the house (not only for that reason, but it helped), and immediately ripped out the carpet and had the hardwood restored. Result? We love it! It made such a huge difference in appearance, and I find that when the kids spill juice, all you need to do is wipe it up with some paper towel. MUCH easier to manage than when you have carpet. The varnish keeps any liquids from soaking in. Also, it’s starting to get cold over here, but the floors are staying nice and toasty. As for clean up, we’ll just Swiffer™ every so often. I now realize why I always felt our carpets never felt clean… they weren’t. We had our carpets professionally cleaned every six months (when we had carpet), but I tell ya, after a week or two, it never ceases to amaze me how much disgusting crap comes off our hardwood.

In essence it just FEELS better. I can’t imagine going back to a fully carpeted house now. Ahhh. :cool:

16

We just recently became a 100% carpet free house, other than a small carpet under the coffee table in the living room.

We put in Pergo in the entire house except for the bathrooms, and we just had tile put on the stairway. Pergo is hardwood flooring with a coating…you cannot scratch it or dent it or stain it or discolor it no matter how hard you try. It always looks new, is easy to clean and dust, and looks great!

Carpeting, no matter how often you vacuum and clean, soon has the warpath…you see exactly where you walk in and walk out. At a certain point, all of the cleaners on the market cannot remove the stains, so you have to buy new carpeting.

We like to go look at homes for sale, just for the fun of it, and every new house and almost all of the more expensive homes have only wood floors or a variation of Pergo flooring.

Carpeting ain’t cheap, and if you have to re-carpet every couple of years, well…pretty soon you will join the people like us who are happy to say we are carpet free! BTW, reduces allergies big time!

17

I’m on the other side:

Friend: "And our new house has wood floors!:
Me: “Too bad.”

I don’t understand the fascination with bare floors. Uncomfortable, can’t lie/sit on them, ugly as hell, cold in the winter, etc. Carpeting is just soooo nice.

18

Most newer homes (post 1950) in my area where built not with hardwood floor, but cheap plywood or fiberboard. Over the top of that you can lay hardwood, but it would be very expensive even at the cheap end. You can do a laminate like Pergo, still pretty expensive and personally, I don’t like the look. You can tile, can be terribly expensive, but is seldom cheap. Tile isn’t a terribly practical option for Minnesota in the winter. Tile can also have problems if it cracks - it can be hard to replace. Linoleum - cheap, looks cheap. Carpet - you can get a fairly good looking carpet for a reasonable price. When its time to tear it out, it isn’t the nightmare removing tile or linoleum can be.

We have linoleum in our bathrooms and laundry rooms. Wood in our kitchen and dining room and carpet everywhere else (well, bare concrete in the unfinished basement).

19

If you’ve got hardwood, can’t you get a polyurethane coating now?

20

Carpet sucks. You can never really get it clean.

For a detailed discussion of carpet and dirt, check out this book .

We tore out all the carpeting in our house a couple of years ago. There was beautiful wood under it. It was finished with polyurethane varnish. It is great.