Carpet Vs Hardwood

Choosing the right type of flooring for your home and your lifestyle can be tough. Carpet and hardwood flooring are the most popular flooring options available today, and each come with their own pros and cons. Many times the choice to put carpet or hardwood into your home ends up being an aesthetic choice, but there are some pros and cons of each to keep in mind.

Carpet

Pros: One of the biggest pros to carpet is that it is the most comfortable flooring option to stand and walk on. It is warm and soft, especially with a great underlayment. Its softness allows it to absorb impacts and is easier on feet, ankles, and knees when you stand on it for a long time. It helps to insulate a room and can even help to dampen sound.

Carpet is also the cheaper of the two with options in almost any budget range.

Cons: The biggest complaint with carpet is that it is hard to clean and maintain. Spills are difficult to clean up and can easily stain. While there are carpeting options now that help to limit stains, liquids are still a problem for carpet. Dust and dirt can also get trapped in the fibers, which means that it needs very regular vacuuming to keep it maintained.

Carpet has to replaced much more frequently than hardwood. Most manufacturers recommend at most 10 years, and depending on the quality, it could be as low as every few years.

The recommendation is also that it be professionally cleaned once a year to help get the longest life out of your carpet. This means that maintenance costs tend to be higher.

Hardwood

Pros: Hardwood is considered the high-end flooring option. It is beautiful and people love it. It helps add resale value to your home, and it can last for decades. Even if it does get damaged, it is possible to refinish your hardwood flooring to look like new again.

Hardwood flooring is also much easier to keep clean. Spills can easily be cleaned up. There is also no place for dirt and dust to get trapped. This makes hardwood flooring a great option for allergy sufferers.

Cons: Hardwood flooring can be a bit hazardous, especially for children, elderly, or people with disabilities. It is easier to slip and fall. If a fall does happen, the surface is much harder than that of carpet to land on.

Hardwood is a much larger beginning investment than carpet. While it tends to last much longer than carpet, it is also much more expensive to put in.

Carpet and hardwood flooring are the most popular options for flooring today. Before deciding on the flooring that you want in your own home, it is important to keep in mind that each flooring has unique characteristics that make it better or worse in different rooms and lifestyles. For help choosing the best carpet or hardwood for your home, stop by Carpet Depot today and find out how we can help!