Wool mix carpets or synthetic?

Wool mix carpets everywhere in our flat except kitchen and bathroom. I like the warmth and the sound absorption. We have extra thick underlay too in expectation of falls (plus consideration for nieghbours)

No more carpets here either - as karmalady, hard floors everywhere now.

We used to have wool mix after starting with acrylic when we first set up home. Synthetic never wore well and wool mix was much better for wear and cleaning

Hard floors everywhere here, quickstep matt oak and sisal on the stairs. I would never go back to carpet

phoenix

We are gradually getting rid of carpet, going for hard floors and rugs.

The carpet that was on the stairs flattened terribly, completely losing its "textured" appearance pretty quickly!

Me too * Phoenix*, our synthetic living room and stairs carpet has worn badly and it’s nearly impossible to remove stains despite immediately cleaning spills, it looks terrible after 5 years. The pike has flattened in heavy traffic areas and it looks grubby despite cleaning.
I’m going to have hard floors laid in the living room and will recarpet the stairs and bedrooms in due course with wool or natural fibres.

Reported

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Good choice gransue60.
We never buy syntheticas we feel they don`t last half as long or they look warn very early.

I’ve got a synthetic in the bedroom. I’d have wool everywhere else especially rugs near the fire as they just singe a bit but look fine if something hot drops on them! Generally we have hard floors but I wanted something warm underfoot in the bedroom and also that I could clean tea stains and make up off easily as I’m somehow a bit messy .......

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I had my hallway tiled because I felt it was more hygienic but the dog goes whizzing down the hallway and I’m scared of her slipping so I put mats down everywhere. So I’m thinking of having carpet laid on top of the tiles. She’s currently bringing her ball for me to throw down the hallway for her.....

Just ordered Karndean for kitchen/diner and synthetic stain free carpet for l. room, stairs and landing. Existing carpet is 18 years old, so owes us not a lot, hopefully have made the right choices ?

Maybee we have a couple of rugs, to keep them in place we have the white slightly sticky ‘underlay’ you buy at the carpet shops, specifically to keep rugs from moving.

Synthetic every time, so no need to constantly be on the look out for moths ravaging the carpet.Not all synthetic carpets are cheap btw....ours certainly wasn’t.It’s wearing well although may replace it in the future with wooden flooring.
My only ‘down’ on wooden floors ( having had them in past houses) is they need more cleaning/dusting.
The ‘upside’ is that you don’t have all the bother of moving heavy furniture in the future, because you won’t need to change the flooring.

I replaced my old wool carpets with synthetic on the advice of my carpet fitter (who I’ve used for years). What I don’t like about them is you can’t put eg hearth rugs down or mats inside an outside door to wipe feet on as everything just slides around. I’ve tried using sticky stuff under the rugs but nothing works. I like having a different coloured rug in front of the fire where the dog lies etc. The only thing that stays put is a large piece of vetbed. My old wool carpet lasted forever and was as good as new when it was replaced. I only did that because it was dark green colour and made the house gloomy. What was funny was that the carpet fitter put all the old carpet in the garage and said he’d pick it up and take it to the tip but he never did so we did it ourselves. But years later I got a phone call from him. Something had jogged his memory about it: I think it was something to do with a book we’d both read. He was so apologetic! And a previous carpet we’d put on our newly acquired allotment as we’d heard that, if you leave it down for several months it kills off all the weeds. Someone was so fed up of it blowing onto his allotment (not sure how that happened as it was really heavy but it did) that we got there one day and it had been burned.

We always have wool. Far less static electricity.

I've put down a couple of synthetic carpets in bedrooms where there was a rather bad moth problem, they've been fine, I move the beds regularly, well, every couple of months, and the pile is fine so far. Prefer wool tbh but so do the moths.

Years ago you bought a carpet and it lasted for ever, nowadays people change carpets with the wall colour. There are some shocking carpets to be had these days!

Almost all of our married life we have bought 80/20 wool mix. I cleaned my carpets over the years and they come up great. If you spill someone wipe it up straight away no problems them.
Synthetic have a place I guess the only one I bought is down in our bedroom. I wanted a pile something nice and thick under my feet. The problem as someone said the pile flattens and shows the difference with the pile not walked on. It's ok for now but not a purchase I would repeat. At some point I will replace it but hubby doesn't know yet.

gransue60

Thank you all for your kind comments reinforcing how I felt about wool mix carpets. Now they’ve just finished laying them I’m pleased -they look lovely. I was just surprised that people don’t go for them anymore but the fitters say that they’re too expensive for some and anyway people like to change them more frequently. What a great help gransnet is.

We've just had synthetic carpets in the lounge and they cost the same as wool mix ones.

We found it really difficult to find a good range of wool mix ones and had heard horrific tales of carpet moth being much more common now.

I expect my mother is spinning in her grave but I love the softness of our polyester carpet and our daughters are really impressed.

We have a wool mix carpet in the living room. In the bedrooms we have synthetic.

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Thank you all for your kind comments reinforcing how I felt about wool mix carpets. Now they’ve just finished laying them I’m pleased -they look lovely. I was just surprised that people don’t go for them anymore but the fitters say that they’re too expensive for some and anyway people like to change them more frequently. What a great help gransnet is.

I just changed to a winter rug in front of my stove. It is pure woven wool and is safest for in front of a stove. I have had wool fitted carpet in the family home, beautiful and hard wearing for the whole time we lived there. Now I have quickstep laminate throughout, I have a horror of wool moths and carpet moths and they do like to lurk in dark place such as under beds

Also much less likely to get static from wool.

Well, we have just replaced our lounge carpet with a polyester one. It is lovely.

I'm sure my mother is spinning in her grave but we should embrace new things not be stuck in the past.

Wool or wool mix every time.
Harder wearing, safer, more environmentally friendly - that salesman did not know what he was talking about or perhaps he was trying to “push” synthetics.
Cleaning carpets with bleach?
Rubbish!