Community Hall Flooring - hard flooring better than carpet?

[Albless]

Posting here for traffic.

My church has a hall which is used by various local groups for meetings etc. It is also used for Coffee Mornings, Messy Church, children’s craft groups, and baby and toddler groups. Most of the time we rely on the groups themselves to clean up after themselves - hoover etc are provided.

We are thinking of replacing the flooring, and my preference is for an easily cleaned hard flooring like vinyl or marmoleum, with washable rugs or mats that can be put down for small children for floor activities.

Others would prefer to carpet the hall.

What do you think? I’m particularly interested in thoughts about flooring for baby and toddler groups.

YANBU - hard flooring is better
YABU - carpet is better

From an infection control perspective hard floors are always preferrable, much easier to clean, especially in the current climate.

Vinyl of some description. Particularly at the moment with some serious disinfecting required after groups? Is a group of elderly folk going to want to sit in a room recently vacated by toddlers that hasn't been mopped over?

Definitely hard floor.

Definitely not carpet.

Hard flooring. I worked in libraries, carpet is a nightmare for high traffic public areas - don't do it! Even without the infection risk aspect, it's stained and manky as soon as someone spills a coffee. Which they will do in the first week.

You might need to think about something on the walls to soften sound a bit, if that's possible.

@TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams

Strangely, it’s mostly elderly people who prefer carpet. It baffles me, but they are of a generation who had or still have carpet in toilets and bathrooms.

I’ve had this same discussion before, about a different hall, and they decided on carpet tiles.

Hard floor! I go to groups as a volunteer that use various village halls.

Cushioned vinyl is hard wearing, scrubbable, and good underfoot (not too cold and hard). If also shows up crumbs/etc which means hall users are more conscientious about cleaning up.

“Commercial use” laminate is similar advantages to vinyl. It might be popular with other committees members as it can look a lot nicer than the more “bland” types of vinyl. But it needs to be the commercial stuff which isn’t slippy when wet!! Old ladies on freshly-mopped wooden flooring may not end well.

Carpet is minging. People spill, mop up but the carpet then sits damp in an empty (unheated and unventilated hall). Or they don’t mop up properly if it’s clear “fluids” (aka toddler pee). Things get ground in. You need to properly carpet-shampoo very frequently. And if Hall users are careless about hoovering it’s not so obvious so the carpet gets manky. Even the scrubby carpet tiles get yuk.

The one issue is that if you’ve a hard floor you may well NEED curtains/something to take the echo away, esp if you’ve older people who use hearing aids.

In an ideal world, toddler groups would have those wood-fibre filled “bee mat” things if you’ve storage space. They’re fab, last forever, not too heavy, wipe clean, etc. You can also get the soft foam interlocking squares which make fun “running tracks” for toddler groups and a central “soft area”.

I’ve done youth groups in halls with hard floors and halls with carpet, and much prefer hard floor! It’s SO much easier to clean and stays looking decent for longer.

Carpet hard wearing enough for a hall like that would cost a fortune and cheap carpet would need re-newing every 5 years or so. Carpet is an insane idea.

Hard, sweepable, moppable floors are the only solution.

Multi-use suggests all sorts of potential spills/accidents that even the finest hoover/carpet cleaner won't be able to deal with. If you rent out the hall you'll have to include a deposit for carpet cleaning - and have the balls to withold it when something gets spilled/trodden in/ground into the carpet.

Definitely not carpet. I manage our church & new-build community centre, which are both hired out and the carpet is horrible to keep nice. Everyone is pleased with it when it goes down and for a while the spills box is used assiduously and then it’s not and it looks urgh.

We have wooden flooring, of the type you can sand and refinish Imin the community centre. You need to budget to have it treated once a year and also make sure you use the right cleaners etc, but the non-preschool end still looks amazing 8 years on. The preschool end is about to be sanded and refinished which although pricey, is still cheaper than new flooring.

Baby and toddler groups are fine with hard flooring. We had large rugs, which also help to delineate different play areas, and the hard floor is great for the ride-ons and so on. Spills and puddles are easily cleaned up on hard floors.

Carpet give better soundproofing. It cuts the echo and means someone moving a chair isn't noisy, which could be a good reason to use carpet if only elderly people are using a room. It makes sense in the worship area.

However in a multi use hall, you have to go for something it is easy to sweep sand up from and to mop, and that isn't carpet on either account.
Nothing too polished though, as moving chairs and tables and equipment for different groups scratches it too easily and then the propery committee lose their rag

LVT would work well here. Luxury vinyl tiling. Hard-wearing, warmer underfoot than laminate and so easy to clean. You can get literally any design and colour now. You can recreate a parquet floor in it.

"Strangely, it’s mostly elderly people who prefer carpet. It baffles me"

They are much more likely to have hearing impairments than younger people. Carpet absorbs echo beautifully and makes it far easier to hear.

Unfortunately carpet is REALLY hard to keep clean, so I think in this case you'll have to go with hard flooring.

Our hall has a vinyl floor covering. It is commercial standard and was a bit outlay initially; but is fantastic. It sits in a concrete base, but the underlay that has been used means that it’s not cold and is somewhat cushioned. The best bit is that it is non slip. I didn’t believe the sales guy so he got a bit out and poured water on it. Try as we might, you could not slip over.
I’m sure it was an odd sight to see 3 grown adults trying to fall on their arses, but it won’t let you fall over when wet.
It also looks like laminate flooring with the pattern, but comes on a large roll.

I agree with PPs that a hard floor would be better.
BUT if you need to convince others, maybe Google some comparisons - for ammunition!

Here's one : -
www.birchcarpets.co.uk/blog/the-comprehensive-guide-to-flooring

Putting carpet in would be crazy imo.

It depends how often it's going to be cleaned. It's a myth (ask allergen experts) that hard floors are better. They ARE, but only if kept spotless. That means vacuuming at least once a day if not more. Carpets trap dust and other allergens so can actually be much less problematic.

I have hard floors throughout and it's like painting the Forth Bridge keeping them dust free. That said, I'd go with not carpets for any communal hall type of room.

Hard flooring !

Hard flooring for sure with some of those jigsaw piece soft mats for babies.

I don’t really understand why an elderly person would want carpet - it’s not like they’ll be sitting on it?

I remember in our local children’s centre they had hard flooring in the main hall (also used by the connected primary school) and soft matted floors in the baby rooms, but they were ‘shoes off’ rooms.

(I also remember when one of mine spectacularly pooed all over that soft floor and no one had a key for the cupboard with all the cleaning products!)

Hard floors will give more options as to who you can hire out to as well. Dance and exercise classes for example.