Best Carpets for Cleaning and Long-Term Wear
Short on time? Here are the bullet points:
- Most Durable: Closed-Loop
- Easiest to Clean: Berber
- Best Stain Resistance: Factory-Applied Coating
- Best of All Worlds: Solution Dyed PTT
The nights are getting cooler and the days are getting shorter, which means that winter is officially on its way — and with it, some serious wear and tear on your carpets.
Winters in Colorado bring snow, mud, road salt, dead leaves, and other debris and mess that can soak into your carpet fibers, grinding them down and deteriorating them faster. You’re also likely to be spending more time indoors once the weather cools down, adding to the foot traffic that your carpet is exposed to.
And don’t forget holiday season! Between Halloween parties, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and all the other winter holidays, your home might be hosting a lot more people than it usually does.
So if you’re shopping for a new carpet that’s durable, easy to clean, and will last for many years no matter how much punishment you put it through, keep reading! We’ve got everything you need.
Most Durable Carpet: Closed-Loop
Carpet styles can be divided into two major groups: cut-pile and closed loop. Closed-loop carpet is made of lots of small loops of yarn, woven through a canvas backing. With cut-pile carpet, those loops are trimmed, leaving the ends of the yarn exposed.
Generally, cut-pile carpet is softer and more luxurious, but closed-loop carpets are much more durable. Closed loop carpets:
- Don’t expose the fragile ends of yarn to foot traffic and furniture
- Keep their shape better under repeated compression and wear
- Keep dirt out better, not allowing it to fall deep into the carpet or carpet backing
Easiest to Clean: Berber Carpets
Berber carpets are a type of closed-loop, named after the handmade rugs that the Berber tribes of Northern Africa used to weave. While most closed-loop carpets are made of parallel rows of small loops of yarn, the loops in Berber carpet are crossed and overlapped, making a dense, tight surface.
Since the gaps in Berber carpet are much less pronounced, dirt and liquid aren’t absorbed nearly as easily as they are in other varieties of carpet. Your vacuum cleaner will roll much more easily over a Berber carpet and, since dirt sits on the surface, the cleaning will be much more thorough.
Berber is also extremely long-lasting. Since the fibers cross over each other, they also support each other. They bounce back from heavy furniture or repeated foot traffic, regaining their original shape quickly and easily. Berber carpet won’t show uneven wear in hallways, staircases, or between furniture like other varieties.
Best Stain Resistance: Factory Treatment
If you do choose a Berber carpet for your new flooring, look for a variety with a factory-applied stain resistance treatment. There are several brands of chemical treatment — some licensed from chemical manufacturers, some proprietary to the carpet manufacturer — but the important thing is factory application.
What this means is that the stain resistance treatment is applied directly to each and every tiny fiber before it’s ever woven into yarn or stitched into carpet. Since the stain treatment inundates and saturates the carpet, it will never wear out or wash away, even with repeated hot-water extraction cleaning (sometimes called steam cleaning).
Some carpet cleaning services will offer stain treatment, applied by way of the cleaning solutions they use to clean your carpet, but it’s simply not as effective. Think of it like the wax offered at some car washes — if it’s not applied properly, it won’t stay on.