Have you ever wondered "What are the benefits of carpet compared to other flooring options?" Well, carpets provide many therapeutic and money-saving benefits for a built environment, which makes them an important element of any design scheme.

Here are just five benefits of carpets and reasons why you should consider the installation of a danfloor commercial carpet.

Benefits of Carpet Fact 1 - Carpets transfer less bacteria to hands than some other floor finishes.

The transmission of bugs, bacteria and viruses is a hot topic for discussion at the moment and we have all become aware that viruses and bacteria can survive on hard and soft surfaces for varying lengths of time.

We all know that feeling of wiping down a surface in the kitchen to turn around a moment later to find toast crumbs or spilt liquid on our “clean” surface. Well, the same goes for flooring. As soon as a surface is cleaned, whether it’s hard flooring or carpet, it becomes contaminated with tiny particles of dust and dirt. It can also become loaded with bacterial and viral matter.

Within environments such as care homes, floors are not considered as a hot spot for the spread of infection as residents and staff don’t often touch the floor with their bare hands. However, within education and child care settings this is a slightly different matter. So, isn’t it good to know that carpet transfers less bacteria to hands than a number of other floor finishes?

This fact was proven in a rigorous study conducted by Lankford et al (2006) who suggests that certain pathogens such as VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci) survive less well, or for shorter periods, on carpet than on other floor coverings, including rubber tile, linoleum, vinyl sheet goods, and vinyl composition tile. In addition to discovering that carpet harbours less VRE, this research found that carpeting also transferred less VRE to hands via contact than rubber and vinyl flooring and performed just as well in cleaning as any other flooring tested.

Benefits of Carpet Fact 2 - Treated carpets can deactivate bacteria and viruses

So, if a carpet becomes loaded with bacterial or viral matter it will give you the confidence to know that a Danfloor carpet is treated with BI-OME, an antimicrobial yarn coating that achieves a 4 log reduction off 99.99% in bugs and bacteria and has been proven to deactivate viruses including SARS-COV-2.

Our antimicrobial carpets start to work as soon as contamination occurs. Within the first 15 minutes, our carpets provide a 3 log reduction of 99.9% in bacteria and within 30 minutes this progresses to a 4 log reduction of 99.99%.

The revolutionary carpet yarn coating is specially designed to deactivate microorganisms when they come into contact with the carpet fibres by physically stabbing the membrane of the microbe and electrocuting the biochemicals within it.

There are very few hard-flooring finishes available on the market with inbuilt antimicrobial properties and those that have natural antimicrobial properties take much longer to become effective and have a far lower log reduction. Therefore, carpets which contain such antimicrobial and viral properties are the ideal flooring solution to help with infection prevention and control.

Benefits of Carpet Fact 3 – Carpets absorb sound and reduce echoes and unwanted noise

Have you ever been in a room when you’ve removed all the soft furnishings and have found that sound seems to echo more?

In a room which has lots of hard surfaces, noise and sound reflect off the walls and floors and bounce around causing sounds to echo and resonate throughout the room.

Well, carpets can help reduce noise and unwanted echoes and sound as carpet is naturally an outstanding sound absorptive material.

A carpet which is manufactured for commercial environments can absorb airborne noise as efficiently as many specialized acoustic materials.

UK building regulations state that floor coverings should have a weighted reduction of not less than 17 Db. Many flooring options fall well below the 17 Db required, some achieving as little as 2 or 3 dB. A danfloor carpet generally exceeds the British Standard and achieves more than 28 dB.

Benefits of Carpet Fact 4 Carpets improve indoor air quality

Generally, we spend more than 85% of our time indoors, with the elderly and those who are confined to an internal environment spending even longer. Surprisingly air quality is 5-10 times worse inside than it is outside due to less square footage and ventilation. Throughout the last 10 years, there have been numerous studies into the use of carpet versus hard floor surfaces and what effect these two flooring solutions have on indoor air quality.

As we’ve just mentioned, fine dust can present a significant health hazard, especially for allergy sufferers, as particles may irritate when they are breathed in and enter the respiratory tract. Many of the studies suggest that carpet fibres attract and retain dust particles, unlike hard surfaces where they lie on the surface and regularly become air born. If carpets are regularly vacuumed these particles, and allergens that are bound within the carpet fibres, are removed from the room without causing discomfort

Benefits of Carpet Fact 5 Carpets are quicker and less expensive to clean than other types of flooring.

A proper life cycle analysis is key to proving that carpet is more cost-effective than other flooring solutions on the market.

A 2002 report, “Life cycle cost analysis for floor coverings in school facilities” prepared by the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification found that carpet could be 65% less expensive to maintain than a hard surface flooring.

Many studies and research have been conducted into the costs, time and difficulties of cleaning various floor finishes and carpets come out very favourably. On an annual basis, research suggests that it takes two-and-a-half times longer to clean hard floors than carpet and the cleaning chemicals needed for hard floors are seven times more expensive.

To find out more about danfloor’s range of commercial carpets and how they can enhance your environment visit our sector pages to see which ranges meet your needs.

Watch our short film which summaries all these important benefits of carpets