Carpet flooring is just one option for the decoration and functionality of your home. However, whatever you choose, please consider the pros and cons of carpet flooring which remains hugely popular.

For me, your flooring really sets the tone for the entire home. It’s a decision you shouldn’t rush into. Various flooring options work well in different areas of your home. I could run through all of them, but I want to focus on an old favourite – carpet.

If you bought a house twenty or thirty years ago, then pretty much every room in the house would be carpeted. Even the hallways would be full of carpet flooring, and you might even find some in the bathroom. Then, for a span of years, it drifted away from the interior design scene. People went for hardwood flooring everywhere, and carpets were a thing of the past. Now, it’s come full-circle and carpeting is back in business.

I’m sure many of you are aware of this, and you’re looking at your home wondering if some carpet flooring is a good idea. I can’t make that decision for you, but I can help you understand some of the advantages and drawbacks of carpet flooring. Check them out down below, and you’ll soon be able to make a more informed and confident decision!

Carpet Flooring Pros and Cons Explained

Pro: Cosy

Carpeting is by far the cosiest of all flooring options. It’s soft underfoot, you can lie down on it and feel comfortable – there’s just something cosy about carpet flooring that you don’t get with any other options.

Sure, you can lay a rug down on a hard flooring option, but it’s not quite the same. Carpeted flooring just feels so much nicer and will create a more homely atmosphere. As a result, it’s perfect for bedrooms and living areas because it adds a cosy feel to the room. 

Con: Maintenance

For most people, the key drawback of carpet is the maintenance required to keep it in excellent condition. With other flooring options, you don’t have to do much at all. If something spills on hardwood or laminate flooring, you wipe it up right away. If there’s dust or debris, then it sits on the surface of hard floors and can be swept up with ease. 

Things are different with carpet flooring because of how they’re made. When something is spilt, it gets soaked into the carpet fibres. If you don’t act quickly, then the spillage sinks deep into the material and can cause a permanent stain. Also, dust and debris can get trapped in the carpet fibres and be much harder for you to remove.

In fact, cleaning a carpet is so hard that you will likely have to call upon professional carpet cleaning services to help you out. Some experts even recommend you do this once per year to truly maintain the carpet and ensure it lasts as long as possible.

All in all, carpets can stain easily and be a pain to look after. This is why they’re never suitable for kitchens or dining areas – the risk is too considerable! 

Pro: Energy Efficient

Out of all the flooring options, carpet is the most energy-efficient. There’s nothing fancy going on here, it’s just a simple case of carpets being thicker and warmer than other flooring types.

You see, a carpet will trap more heat in a room. This is purely down to the way it’s made, and the thick fibres that interlock throughout it. The best way to demonstrate this is to walk barefoot on carpet and hard flooring. The carpet will feel warm, but the hard flooring will feel cold. 

You probably don’t think much about this – other than that carpeting is more comfortable. But, this actually has consequences on your energy bill. Carpet flooring keeps your home at a more reasonable temperature and prevents heat from escaping. Therefore, your central heating system doesn’t have to work overtime. As such, your energy bills will be lower than someone with hard flooring throughout their home.

With that in mind, if you want to save money, then carpet flooring might be best for you. Plus, it can keep you warm during winter, so it’s worth keeping that in mind as well. 

Con: Durability

Yep, a considerable disadvantage of carpet flooring is the durability. If you compare it to hardwood, laminate, or vinyl, then it doesn’t last anywhere near as long. You can walk around on the hard flooring options for years without really showing much sign of wear and tear.

However, after a few months of constant use, the carpet starts to wear down a bit. The fibres flatten, and it loses some of the softness that it had at the start. Give it a few years, and you may see areas of the carpet that are fading away and starting to leave holes. 

Typically, this happens in areas where there’s a lot of traffic. For example, the front hallway in your home – or the stairs. Both of these areas will be used every single day as people walk and run around them. So, carpet flooring in these parts of your home will wear down pretty quickly. Bear that in mind if you’re thinking about which rooms carpeting would suit best. 

Pro: Noise-cancelling

Perhaps one of the more under-appreciated benefits of carpeted flooring; it cancels out a lot of noise. You won’t notice this downstairs, but carpeted flooring in your upstairs rooms will make a significant difference. The sounds you heard from the rooms below will be muffled and almost non-existent.

Compare that with harder flooring types, and they’re much louder. You can hear clunking sounds as people walk around, it’s very noisy. This is particularly annoying if you’re downstairs trying to watch TV and you have kids in their bedrooms playing with each other and making a racket! At least with carpets you can muffle those sounds and make them less annoying.

Of course, the thicker the carpet, the more soundproof it will be. So, if you feel like your home is a bit too noisy, then it might be worth laying down some carpet upstairs. 

Con: Allergies

If people in your home suffer from allergies, then carpet flooring isn’t the best choice. It goes back to the idea of the carpet fibres trapping things inside. Dust gets caught in there, as will pet hairs and other allergens. Obviously, if all of these things are stuck in your carpet, then it’s not good for people that have allergies. It can trigger issues, which may lead to some serious health concerns.

The argument against this is that you can prevent this by cleaning your carpet regularly. But, we go back to the maintenance issue! It requires a lot of effort to keep cleaning your carpet and ridding it from as many allergens as possible. Especially when you look at other flooring options. Hardwood flooring will just collect dust and things on the surface, then they’re cleaned away with ease. It also won’t attract allergens, so there’s no issue.

Realistically, if allergies are a serious problem in your home, then you should limit your use of carpet as much as possible.

Pro: Safer for Children

Children are prone to running around the house like crazy. Any parent can tell you this only leads to one thing; multiple falls. They fall over all the time, and the flooring you have can be crucial in protecting them from severe injuries. Carpeted flooring is soft and much better for a child to fall on. They might get a stinging carpet burn from a big fall, but that’s far better than what could happen if they fall on hard flooring. 

Children have brittle bones, and it won’t take much to cause a fracture – or some severe bruising. If they fall over on hard flooring, then the chances of them damaging their bones is high. There’s nothing to protect them, and the impact on the hard surface can cause bone breakages.

If you have young children – or are expecting one soon – then it could be beneficial to lay down some carpet instead of your hard flooring. At the very least, you can keep it until they’re old enough to avoid falling over all the time!

Con: Less Valuable

This is a strange point as it’s a bit of a pro and a con. Carpet flooring is easier and cheaper to buy and install than all other flooring types. This is good as it means you can save money. But, thinking in the long-term, it decreases the value of your home. People prefer to buy homes with hard floorings as it is more desirable and fashionable. 

Consequently, if you plan on selling your home, then carpet flooring might not be the best investment for you! 

In summary, you can see there are some clear pros and cons to having carpet in your home. In my eyes, it’s suitable for different people in different areas of the home. Should you kit your entire house out in carpet? Probably not. It won’t work well in bathrooms or kitchens, and it might be better to have a hard flooring option in the entrance hall as well. Other than that, it’s purely up to you. Think about the pros and cons, then decide if you think carpet will suit your home and where it will suit it best.