Carpet Selection Made Simple Purchasing carpet for your home can be one of the most enjoyable and satisfying shopping experiences you can have. Choosing a carpet that balances your aesthetic and practical needs, however, involves more than just picking a style and color that blends with your home's decor. While you want your carpet to enhance the beauty of your home, you also want to be able to find a style that is durable, soil and stain resistant, and attractive for years. Consider the preliminary steps one usually goes through in making a carpet purchase. These steps are important, as they have a direct bearing on whether your ultimate carpet purchase is a satisfying one.

Style - The First Step Budget Consideration What's Practical Where? Carpet Construction Cut Pile Loop Pile Cut and Loop Pile Choosing A Fiber Carpet Characteristics Face Weight of Fibers Fiber Density Twist/Tuft Bind Carpet Durability The Durability Index Note On Padding and Installation

Style - The First Step When you decide to buy carpet, you already have some idea of the look or feel you want in the room or rooms you wish to carpet. You may want a formal, luxurious look, or your decor may be better complemented with a style designed for casual areas. Or perhaps you need something very practical and durable for a high-traffic area. You also probably have a color in mind. Happily, carpet comes in a rainbow of colors, so you'll be able to find virtually any color you want. Today's stain resistance treatments make almost any color practical. Your house may already have a color scheme established, so you will want a carpet that works well with your existing furniture, draperies, and wall treatments. As exact color shadings are often hard to remember once you are away from them, a good ideas is to bring paint chips, wallpaper samples, and even chair cushions or other fabric samples when you come shopping. Remember, color sets the mood. Blues, greens, and grays are "cooling" and serene. Reds, yellows, and browns are warmer colors. Bold colors can create dramatic effects, so be sure about the kind of fashion stamen you want to make. Satisfying your specific decorative needs is always the first consideration. Budget - Always A Consideration Quality carpet need not be expensive. Carpet pricing is usually directly related to quality -- heavier, denser carpets generally cost more. Special looks or textures can also add to the cost of carpet. The TrustMark Carpet Selection System allows you to see exactly what you are paying for so that you can determine the value relative to your needs. In planning your carpet budget, bring your room dimensions to the store and let your salesperson determine how many square yards of floor you need to cover with both carpet and padding. Installation is often included in prices, but it can also be an added expense, depending on your dealer. A good rule to follow is to buy the best quality carpet you can afford. What's Practical Where? Remember, a carpet you fall in love with may not always be practical in all the areas you might want to use it What's beautiful and luxurious in formal living rooms or master bedrooms might not be suitable in high-traffic hallways, entrances, or children's rooms. In short, look for carpet styles that suit the room and the activities that occur there.

Cut Pile Loop Pile Cut and loop piles

Carpet Construction - The Basis of Style Tufted carpet generally falls into one of three different construction types: cut pile, loop pile, and cut and loop pile. Every carpet style is simply a variation of one of these constructions. Cut Pile Here the carpet loops have been cut to create individual, upstanding tips -- creating a luxurious look and feel. Cut pile carpets are available in a wide range of qualities and finishes, from dense, rich velvets to textured saxonies that minimize footprints. The variety of cut pile styles make these carpet suitable for virtually any are of the home. Loop Pile In this construction the carpet loops are not cut or sheared, and the loops themselves form the surface of the carpet. Multi-level loops and the increasingly popular berbers offer exciting design alternatives to cut piles. As a rule, loop pile carpets are very durable and well suited to high-traffic areas. Cut and Loop Piles These carpets combine cut pile and loop pile constructions to create various design effects. Available in solids and multi-colorations, these styles can offer very striking patters or subtle tracery designs. Cut and loop multi-colorations with prominent random patterns have excellent soil-hiding properties. More subtle and less defined cut and loop versions called traceries or carved saxonies are often used in formal settings. Traceries can closely resemble solid color saxony styles with only a suggestion of a pattern. Choosing A Fiber Most residential carpet today is made from one of the following four fibers or blend of them. Nylon is the most commonly used carpet fiber due to its durability and resiliency. Nylon is the most inherently soil resistant. All TrustMark nylons are further treated for added stain and soil resistance. Polyester is an exceptionally soft fiber that provides great color clarity. The fiber is inherently stain and fade resistant and is less expensive than nylon. Polypropylene (Olefin) is the fastest growing carpet fiber because it is extremely resistant to stains, fading, and moisture. Polypropylene's lower price offers excellent value in a carpet. Wool is the original carpet fiber and is still used because of its luxury and natural beauty. Expensive compared to synthetic fibers, wool provides only moderate resistance to soil and staining.

Carpet Characteristics The TrustMark Carpet Selection System assigns numerical ratings to certain carpet characteristics. The higher the numbers assigned to these characteristics the higher the carpet quality. The TrustMark label on the back of each carpet sample allows you to understand what you are buying so you can make a confident carpet purchase. Face Weight of Fibers Face weight is the number of ounces of fiber in a square yard of carpet. All other things being equal, the higher the face weight of a carpet the better. Face weight is measured as tufted pile yarn weight according to ASTM (American Society for Testing Materials) method D-418. Due to several processes involved in manufacturing, such as shearing, the actual finished weight may reflect a variance of up to 7%. The weight is determined compensating for the factor of commercial moisture regain, as defined is ASTM D-1909. The ASTM measurements are accepted industry norms and the most accurate means of determining face weight. Fiber Density Density is how tightly carpet fiber or yarn is packed together and bound into the carpet backing. Higher density affects the appearance of the carpet and provides greater comfort and luxury underfoot. Density is evaluated in accordance with the federal government standard Use of Materials Bulletin UM 44D (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development). Twist/Tuft Bind Twist is the number of times fiber strands are twisted together in a one-inch length of carpet yarn. Twist affects the texture and look of cut pile carpet. In general, the tighter the twist the more durable the carpet. Loop pile styles have closed loops, so twist is not a major factor. Rather, tuft bind is a consideration. Tuft bind is the relative strength of the attachment of the yarn loops to the backing of the carpet. The higher the number the better. Twist is measured in accordance with test method D-1423 set by the American Society for Testing Materials, while tuft bind is tested by the ASTM method D-1335.

Carpet Durability Carpets bearing the TrustMark label are actually walk-tested by utilizing the "20,000 Step Contract Walker Test." Shaw Industries has determined that this is the most accurate way to measure durability. Carpet samples are put down on the floors of testing facilities, and people literally walk on them according to designated traffic patterns. Over time this gives us an accurate picture of how a particular carpet will stand up in different home settings and under varying conditions Each carpet is given a rating to show durability and appearance retention after undergoing 20,00 steps. While these actual walk tests are expensive and labor intensive, no other means of testing is reliable and dependable in creating real home-use conditions and providing a basis for predicting how difference carpets will perform in your home. The validity of our walk tests has been confirmed by comparing them to actual wear situations in consumers' homes. This test allows you to assess your requirements in a carpet and compare with other tested carpets. The assigned rating is based on factors such as shedding, matting, crushing, and other criteria, as measured against an accepted industry scale. As a final comment on testing, it should be stressed that years of use alone do not equate automatically to any durability rating. Carpet is subjected to so many variable wear and stress factors in a home that no one test should be considered totally definitive in making purchasing decisions. While no test yields a foolproof prediction of how a carpet will perform in all room settings, our walk test corresponds to real world conditions more closely than any other. The Durability Index The label on the back of each TrustMark carpet sample shows the durability rating of the sample. The grading follows an industry standard from a top grade of five to a low of one. Five is considered the appearance of a new carpet. A rating of below 2.5 should be considered for light to moderate traffic applications, such as bedrooms or formal areas. Carpets with a rating of 2.5 and above are predicted to provide normal durability. Products positioned in this classification reflect excellent quality and will perform well in a variety of settings. These carpets are often referred to as suitable for "whole house" residential applications. A rating of 4.0 or above means exceptional durability. Carpets in this class perform well even in heavy traffic locations, such as family rooms and children's rooms. Don't forget that, regardless of any rating, proper care and cleaning will always extend the life and use of any carpet. Note On Padding and Installation Make sure you include a good carpet pad with your TrustMark carpet. It will add to the carpet's life and greatly improve the comfort of walking on your carpet. Thin, firm pads generally perform better than thick, soft pads. The TrustMark Pad Pyramid, a display of pad samples at The Carpet Company, allows you to lay carpet samples over different pads so you may actually test how comfortable your carpet will feel underfoot once it's installed. you should insist that your carpet be installed in accordance with the Residential Carpet Installation Standard, Carpet and Rug Institute CRI-105.

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