Carpet Just Got Stained? Consider Eco-Carpet!
By gregoryjohnson
It can be a real pleasure to spend a relaxing evening at home sitting by the fireplace with the love of your life... until you realize that somebody accidentally knocked over a bottle of wine.
You could spend the rest of the night with a can of carpet spray-foam cleaner scrubbing away the stain and arguing over which one of you spilled the bottle. However, if you've ever tried to clean a stain from carpet, you know that often times the spot you are cleaning creates a dirty ring larger than the original spill. So, then you bring in the harsh chemical cleaners, and after exposing yourself to cancer causing carcinogens that don't work, you face the prospect of replacing the entire carpet. At this point, somebody is probably sleeping on the couch.
If this all sounds like a bad dream, then it's time you wake up to the amazing world of carpet tiles! Introducing (or perhaps I should say re-introducing)... carpet tiles in a box! Carpet in a box? Yes. Now you can replace stained or worn tiles of carpet without tearing up the entire floor and throwing it into a landfill somewhere.
Carpet tiles come in something that looks like a pizza box, but don't let the similarity fool you. They are not edible! They are, however, much more portable than a huge carpet roll. If you've ever tried to lift, transport, manage, and install large rolls of carpet, working with carpet tiles will seem like a dream, but go ahead, pinch yourself. You aren't dreaming now! Carpet tiles make carpet installation fun again!
- "Greening Your Purchase of Carpet" by the Environmental Protection Agency
- The Carpet Rug Institute
- Tricycle - enables sustainable design in the creative product life cycle of the interiors industry
One of the main advantages of carpet tiles is that they are relatively easy to replace if they become stained or worn down. Carpet covering a large area of floor space will eventually be severely worn down in high traffic areas, yet it will remain practically like-new in other areas near walls and under furniture. In conventional carpet installations, a renovation could result in high costs and significant non-biodegradable waste. Unless you can find an exact duplicate and have it professionally sized and cut to fit in, you're stuck pulling out the entire carpet.
Remember, life's like a carpet. So, make yours interesting. ~ Gregory
P.S. Know of more sites for environmentally responsible carpeting options? Post your comments here and I'll try to update this blog entry to make it more comprehensive. Thanks!
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Gregory Johnson, Director, ResourcesForLife.com About Gregory About Resources for Life The Small House Society Gregory's...
Carpet Cleaner
A carpet cleaning business is rather detailed. I'm not sure of your experience, but you'll have to know a lot about stains and how to properly treat them and such, also what best to use on what types of carpets. The ones connected to vans are much more convienent for doing a lot of houses throughout one day. As far as "best", you're not really comparing apples to apples if you're talking about a basic smaller one coming from a department store.
jasimar
moonpost
booizzy
Flor is awesome! I've veered away from carpet for years because I have three dogs and allergies. But my new house needed something so I bought a couple of the red Six Easy Pieces area rugs. Totally reasonable price and easy to care for. I can just pull up dirty tiles and rinse them off in my sink. If I get sick of the design, I can mix up the arrangement or spice things up with a couple new colors.
They just lowered prices on their Fedora tiles too. Definitely worth checking out.
roadvermin
We are thinking of this for our bedroom. Wonderful freedom of colour use and constant changes can be made according to what you feel, love that. Great look too.
-RV's Girl
jediwright
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