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Carpet vs Hardwood Flooring

Carpet Vs Hardwood Pros Cons And Which is One The Best For You

by Dylan Johnson

Learn the key differences of carpet vs hardwood right in the following review sections and find whether you choose carpet or hardwood in your final decision. Both carpet and hardwood are the most common flooring materials yet they are different each other.

One comes with the synthetic, quiet, soft and affordable materials but relatively short lifespan. On the other hand, the other comes with the hard, natural materials and more expensive price yet likely long lasted.

Nevertheless, both carpet and hardwood are playing the same roles in completing your home elements. They can be used altogether in a home with different areas.

Either carpet or hardwood has their own characteristic to add functional and aesthetical values that make your flooring favorable to match your specific needs.

However, that isn’t enough to understand carpet vs hardwood. You need the entire review sections to acknowledge you about them so that you can ensure which one would the perfect choice for your home sweet home.

In this regards, this article include all types of information which are the appearance, care and maintenance, cost, installation, water and heat, sizes, lifespan, resale value and some top brands of both carpet and hardwood.

Appearance

Appearance often becomes the first important thing that most people look at when they want to purchase something. Sometimes you cannot judge the product durability over its appearance but other time you need the appearance to make things known to the world.

This way, both carpet and hardwood have their own uniqueness in appearance. Carpet is particularly designed with the large number of colors, textures and feels as well as styles, allowing you to meet your needs about the suitable flooring elements matching to the interior home design. Carpet offers not only the soft and comfortable feel but also the stylish appearance in line with the room design.

On the other hand, hardwood offers the recognizable look for everyone. It is designed with the natural wood tone colors and attractive patterns mimicking the world’s grain. All types of hardwood are available in various looks depending on the wood species.

For the best appearance, it is noticeably that hardwood flooring is more attractive and stunning than the carpet.

For most people, hardwood flooring largely meets the personal preference more than the carpet.

Carpet vs Hardwood Care and Maintenance

The next review of carpet vs hardwood you may need to know is the care and maintenance. In this case, carpet requires a simple care and maintenance. Simply, you just need to vacuum the carpet frequently to get rid of dust.

However, it can be hard for people who are suffering from allergies to completely clean the carpet since the micro-bacteria are easily trapped in the carpet fibers. This way, carpet is described to be a poor flooring material.

On the contrary, hardwood is constructed from the materials that allow you to easily clean floor. Simply, you just need to sweep or vacuum to remove the dust out of the floor. For deeper cleaning, you can mop the hardwood using the wood cleaner to remove the difficult dirt and most stains.

For the best care and maintenance, hardwood is considered easier to clean and maintain due to the fact that it is less susceptible to staining. Hardwood doesn’t trap dust, dirt and even allergens like the carpet does.

Carpet vs Hardwood Durability

Durability is very important to check out before you finally make a decision to choose carpet or hardwood. One thing to remember is the fact that the proper care and maintenance will lead to the high durability of the floor.

This way, you can extend the carpet’s lifespan as long as you carry out the professional cleaning. However, carpet is unlikely lasting longer.

If you want a more durable flooring, then you can opt the hardwood which is regarded to have higher durability than the carpet.

Referring to the materials constructed the hardwood, it is unquestionable that hardwood can last for so many decades if you perform the right and proper care and maintenance.

Though it may wear, the hardwood can be completely sanded and refinished. Moreover, if you apply the best quality polyurethane varnish, your hardwood can even be renewed every some years.

For the best durability of carpet vs hardwood, hardwood dominates the major advantage compared to the carpet. So if want a flooring with the high durability, hardwood is better.

Read Also: DuPont Carpet Flooring Review

Carpet vs Hardwood Cost

Let’s now come to the most sensitive topic of all that is cost. Luckily, carpet offers a more affordable price than the hardwood. Most carpet’s prices start from $1 per square foot.

Though it comes with this affordable price, you impossibly change the carpet every few years, right?

However, there are also some carpets options that comes at $20 per square foot for the highest quality ones. On average, most homeowners and home advisers widely purchase the ones with the price $3 per square foot.

For hardwood, the solid options price can start from $4 per square foot. On average, the solid hardwood options can cost about $8 per square foot and it can be higher for the hardwood with the good quality.

Now you see that hardwood comes more expensive than the carpet, right?

Carpet vs Hardwood Installation

Once you choose carpet or hardwood, the next thing you should know is the installation. For carpet, it needs an underlayment pad along with the nail and staples to get the carpet installed in the desired room.

Rolling out the carpet will be the first way you should perform over the floor, stretch and attach it around the perimeter by hooking it on to the strips of the tack. Trim the carpet into a precise fit using the special tools.

Join the carpet pieces using the heat-activated tape that you can just place below the seams. This isn’t an easy process, thus, there is no DIYers attempt to do it. Then, hiring an installer is the solution.

For hardwood, the installation process is started by laying the rows of the board one at a time individually, from the longest and the most visible wall. Next, slide the edge grooves into the tongues of the next boards to subsequent the boards.

Then, nail the boards correctly. If you find the flooring boards are unfinished, you can sand, stain and top-coat the floors using the few of coats of polyurethane varnish. In this case, the hardwood flooring installation is usually performed by the flooring experts.

For the best installation of carpet vs hardwood, it is rarely to see DIY installation for both carpet and hardwood. It is due to the fact that either installing carpet or hardwood needs some special tools that only a few people have.

However, the professional installation cost may be higher for hardwood flooring.

Carpet vs Hardwood Water and Heat Resistance

Are both carpet and hardwood are resistant to water and heat?

Or is it just one of them that is featuring water and heat resistant?

Considering the carpet is made of synthetic fibers, it is highly resistant to water damage. However, it is really important not to let the water seeping down into the carpet’s backing layer or into the beneath of the wood subfloor.

Believe it or not, mold will be able to fester down just beneath the carpet itself. Therefore, carpet is not good for wet home areas such as bathroom and laundry room as well as kitchen.

Carpet also easily gets damaged by the heat. Hot pans and cigarette flames may easily burn the carpet. Furthermore, certain carpet materials are able to emit the toxic gases when home fire is seriously igniting. Therefore, it is not recommended for kitchens.

Similarly, hardwood flooring is neither recommended in any home areas with the high moisture or water presence. In some cases, hardwood flooring is fine for kitchens.

Any spilled milk, syrup, water or other liquids can be easily wiped as soon as possible to keep it clean. However, it is not recommended to install hardwood on concrete slab.

For the best water and heat resistant, both carpet and hardwood are not very recommended. The materials constructing carpet and hardwood can be easily damaged by the water and burned by the heat of cigarette.

Read Also: Dream Weaver Carpet Flooring Review

Sizes

Now the carpet vs hardwood review will talk about sizes. Typically, most carpets are available in rolls of 12 to 15 feet long. They can be cut into any size depending on the consumer’s needs.

On the other hand, hardwood is mostly available in 48-inch-long boards along with the width of 1 ½ to 4 inches. In addition to the sizes, hardwood is typically ¾ inches thick for the solid one and 7 inches for the engineered one.

Resale Value

Are you going to resale the carpet or hardwood someday?

Due to the fact that carpet has only a short-lifespan, it is unlikely to have a good resale value.

On the other hand, hardwood is designed with the high-end and luxurious natural view along with the long lifespan, meaning that it offers a good resale value.

Final Words

Finally, out of the carpet vs hardwood review we have just shared above, you may find the choosing the hardwood can be the righter decision you will ever make.

Now which one to consider?