Do You Need to Use Underlay For Your Carpet?

When you buy a new carpet, you will find that the manufacture or the retailer advises that you also purchase underlay. It can sometimes feel as if they are just trying to sell you more things, in order to maximise profits. However, underlay is often an integral part to any carpet. Below, we are going to look at the various benefits of using carpet underlays. Once you have read this article, you will have a much better understanding of the importance of carpet underlay.

Creating an Even Floor

Most houses have slightly uneven floors. With old houses this shows itself as a mild slope; newer houses may have lumps, bumps and ridges. An underlay will help to even out these imperfections. Sure, it cannot get rid of a slope, but it can make it much less noticeable, and it can make it easier to stand furniture.

If you have an uneven floor, as described above, then you will need to purchase underlay if you want you floor to look smoother.

Underlay Is Insulating

Unless you purchase specialist underlay designed for floors with under floor heating, the underlay will offer some level of insulation. Different types of underlay will offer greater or lesser degrees of insulation, but they will all offer some. This has several benefits:

1.       It helps keep the house warm during winter

2.       It helps keep the house cool during summer

3.       It dampens noise within the house (e.g. shouting kids or loud footsteps)

4.       It dampens noise coming from outside the house

The first two points will help you to save money on your energy bills, as you will not need to use the central heating or air conditioning as much as you would if you did not have the added insulation.

With the latter two points, you can actually buy acoustic carpet underlays. These enable you to create superior acoustics within the house, which is especially important for those of you who are ardent fans of music, or that have their own recording studio at home. Acoustic underlay is used in theatres and cinemas to offer superior sound.

Underlay Keeps Your Carpet Looking Better for Longer

Underlay protects your carpet from wear and tear. It does this in several ways, the first of which is density. Density is the measured in pounds per cubic foot and refers to the amount of pressure that the underlay can take: the higher the density, the greater the force that the underlay can absorb from the carpet. The underlay draws pressure away from the carpet and takes the brunt itself. This means that it becomes worn or flat, rather than the carpet, and so will extend the life of the carpet. Clearly, the longer that you want the carpet to last, the higher should be the density of the underlay.

As you can appreciate, there are several key benefits in using underlay. The only exception is for use with carpets that already have underlay backing; that is to say, carpets that are manufactured with an underlay underside.

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