Carpet of Hard Floor – Which is Better?

This is not such a simple question because both carpets and hard flooring have their pluses and minuses, so it is more of a personal preference. If you're not sure what exactly you want to buy I recommend you to read this post. I will try to explain all differences of these two types of flooring here. I've had a hard time choosing, when I had to purchase flooring option for my place. At first I decided to go with a wall-to-wall carpet, but when my child was born I understood that I've made the wrong choice.

Maybe not exactly wrong but certainly the worse one for me because cleaning after children is really exhausting, there were stains in such colours I never thought existed. Once I've even found a mix of chewing gum, chocolate and crayon under the couch. My angel tried to hide it and it discovered it only when it was time for deep cleaning the house. Although I hire the best carpet cleaning company in the area, even they didn't manage to remove the strange stain out.

This is why I decided it is probably a better idea to remove our wall-to-wall carpet and replace it with hard wood floor. This was quite an investment because hard wood material is expensive but I think it's worth it's value. Cleaning it is much easier and most stains can't become permanent – I guess only some paint and ink stains would be a problem, but I still haven't had such issue (keeping my fingers crossed). Before I make a parallel between these two flooring options I need to say - all my observations are coming from personal experience - you may never have the same problems.

Carpets

Until recently it was believed that carpets add a classy touch to your home. Oriental handmade rugs and carpets were extremely expensive and thus valuable, but they require special attention and treatment. Most of them are made from natural fibres and materials, which are sensitive to moisture and it is quite hard to remove stains from them. Luckily, nowadays there are great alternatives to almost all types of carpets, made from synthetic materials and mixed fibres which are tolerant to liquids, easy to clean and dry fairly quickly.

Cleaning the carpets can be done easy and effective now, thanks to hot water extraction procedure also known as steam cleaning. In most cases this treatment completely removes even old, tough stains. The best part is carpet cleaning companies offer additional service, that can protect your textile floorings. It is a special anti stain coating, which prevents liquids from penetrating deep into the fibres of the carpet, when applied. This way you have more time to react and remove the spill, before it becomes nasty stain.

The maintenance of carpets is quite simple – vacuuming them twice a week, removing stains right away when they occur and deep cleaning twice a year. If course removal of certain spots can be quite hard if the material is demanding. As for durability most carpets last up to 15 years which is not that much when you think about it. Some manufacturers say their products can last fifty years but I really doubt that's possible, at least not if people placed in high traffic areas.

Hard Wood Floors

On the other hand there are hard wood floors which are almost 100% stain and water resistant. Moreover rugs and carpets accumulate dust and soil particles and hard wood floors don't. This makes cleaning it really easy – all you need to do is to mop it every day, which isn't such a big deal, because you will be ready for less than 15 minutes. And the best thing is most of the time you can use plain, tap water. We'll it has it's disadvantages too. Hard wood is not such a good noise and temperature isolator as carpets.

What about durability? Well, if you purchase qualitative hard wood flooring it will last up to 50 years if you maintain it properly. The peculiarity of wooden floor is that if you want to prolong their life, you need to re-finish them once or twice a year. The worst thing it can happen to your hard floor is to scratch it, but professional maintenance once or twice a year will solve this problem. Cleaning companies have specialised tools and products, which remove all scuff marks and polish the floor impeccably.

Both types of flooring have their pluses and minuses and you need to choose wisely the option which will suit you better.