Can Carpet Keep Your Home Cooler in the Summer?
Most people turn to carpet to keep their homes warmer in the winter, but can carpeting keep your home cooler in the summer months?
The answer is yes, and it comes down to insulation.
Carpeting is beautiful, but it can help with overall energy efficiency. Installing carpeting in a warm climate can help you maintain warmer temperatures in winter AND cooler temperatures in the summer. The idea that carpeting will only make a home warmer is a myth. In fact, carpeting limits the heat entering your home and results in cooler interior temperatures.
The Sloane’s Carpet Secret team is happy to consult with you to select the best flooring options for your home. Our team will listen for cues to your climate and lifestyle. Is your climate dry or humid? What other climate or lifestyle considerations do you have when heating or cooling your home?
While carpeting won’t cool a room, it will provide an extra layer of insulation that will help prevent cool air from escaping the home during summer. Most homes have insulation in the ceilings, walls, doors, and windows to keep excess temperatures from entering or exiting the structure. Insulation keeps heat from coming in on a hot day and from going out when it’s cold outside by limiting the energy transfer that affects indoor temperatures.
Think of carpeting as an additional layer of insulation that helps to trap the cold air from your cooling system inside the home during summer. Carpeting will also prevent heat from entering the house through the floor in summer (just as it will keep cold air from entering in winter).
When it comes to insulating your home, thicker carpets provide the best insulation. More efficiency can be achieved when the carpet is laid over a quality carpet padding. Because it helps trap cool or warm air inside, carpeting can decrease air conditioning and heating bills year-round.
Elvis, the notorious king of rock and roll, loved carpet so much he even put it on the walls! While we don’t recommend the green shag that he was so fond of, it does look like he may have been on to something.