To think UK should have moved on from carpeting by this stage

[Finlesswonder]

It's gross, it's ugly, it's high maintenance, and in a world of global warming, it increasingly feels like a dust and burning sun heat trap.
Why are people in this country still obsessed with carpeting?

I live in south Germany and it can get really hot here. It's very rare to have carpets in flats / houses, and we don't have any in our 2 bedroom flat. But coming from the UK, I miss them 😆 they just make a home look cosier for some reason.

You know a lot of trendy ‘original floor boards’ in the uk were never meant to be seen? They were designed to have a large rug over them that almost filled the room. A lot people could not afford that. They had lino and rag rugs at best.

In the 1960s or thereabouts, ‘wall to wall’ carpets were the latest thing in luxury.

In the right place, there’s nothing better than a wool carpet.

In most of the uk, it’s cold and draughty a lot of the year, and it’s a real privilege NOT to have carpets now as we have other ways of keeping warm.

I’d say your privilege is showing a bit OP, if you lived in a freezing house and had no money you’d be glad of your carpets.

Personally I love a hard floor with a well-chosen rug!

You talk about global warming, but carpet is a good insulator and helps to retain heat. That’s why it’s suggested you out it in your attic. So in the winter it helps as it takes very little energy, unlike laminate or hard wood flooring.

So your argument here is obsolete.

I can’t get myself worked up about flooring. We have a mixture of both. I clean my hard floors once a day and I vax my carpets and sofa once in summer and once before winter sets in. I hoover once a day tho because I have DC and a pet.

I hate hard flooring, it’s cold, hard and noisy. We’ve got carpet upstairs and in the two reception rooms, Karndean flooring in hall, kitchen, bathroom and utility. Carpet is warm underfoot, muffles noise and stops draughts from gappy floor boards.

You don't have a carpet problem, you have a cat problem.

I grew up in the 60s, fitted carpets were for the rich.
We had bare floorboards and linoleum, with the odd rug.
Living in Scotland and no central heating I remember freezing cold gusts coming up through cracks in the wooden floor.
I now have a lot of good quality carpet in my home, except bathrooms, kitchen and dining areas.
The carpet is thick, made of wool with a good quality underlay.
It is a pleasure to walk or sit on- I like to sit on the floor rather than a chair.My carpets make for a very cosy feel on cold winter nights.
Rooms with a lot of hard surfaces, floors, metal, glass, marble have a different sound too- they echo and clatter.
Rooms with a carpet have sounds absorbed, I like the soft quality of sound in a carpeted room, it is gentle o the ears.

Your intolerance of difference is showing

My mum has rugs on carpets. I had never thought about it before

I dislike carpet, my last flat was rented and had carpet everywhere, it even had carpet in the kitchen, that really flat pile stuff, similar to school carpet. It was a nightmare to keep clean as unlike hardfloors it took hours to dry each week when I shampood them.

The flat I live in now is carpetless, I have my floors hoovered, mopped and dried in the entire flat within about forty minutes.

Our home in Sweden doesn’t have any carpets, no issues with cold, comfort or noise.

Only if you're a minger yourself.
Carpet can actually be better for people with allergies, contrary to what people might think. Unless you vacuum and wash hard floors daily (at least) allergens sit on top and can infiltrate the air much easier. Carpet traps allergens.

I have hard floors but fuck me they're high maintenance.

My friend has hard floors, two dogs and lets her cleaning get out of control. The areas the dogs go are literally like walking through mohair.

Lots of hotels outside the U.K. have carpet. I’ve stayed fairly recently in Switzerland, Costa Rica, Philippines, Netherlands & France. All the hotels had carpet in the bedrooms and most in the halls surrounding them. Most didn’t in the lobby/bar/restaurants.

We have a mix currently with tile in bathrooms & kitchen, floorboards in living rooms & downstairs hall, LVT in utility room & carpets in bedrooms/on stairs. Were I building my own house I’d have underfloor heating & hard floors throughout with the possible exception of the stairs. I’m sure there is soundproofing material you can have put in as you build if it’s planned. We did look at getting underfloor heating when getting work done recently but it was really expensive compared to just moving around a few radiators. I think we will most likely go with floorboards and a rug when we get our bedroom done but stick with carpet for kids rooms and guest room. It works fairly well in old houses that don’t have the greatest insulation.

Yep, our home in Sweden doesn’t have any carpets, no issues with cold, drafts or noise. Then neither does our carpet free flat in the UK or our carpet free holiday home in the new forest.

@Carrusa

Very good points there.

When I spoke to the sales of a new development and asked them if its possible to have hard flooring all over, he said no, only downstairs!

That's probably because hard flooring would show up how uneven the floors are in these new builds! The downstairs floor is probably a solid concrete slab so that's ok.

85% of the year it’s cold enough to need a jumper and something cost on your feet

Carpets are disgusting. I've literally never understood them.

What are you struggling with?

Yabu but not obsessed. It's warmer and looks nicer than other flooring. Each to their own

I think bedrooms with hard floors look cold and unwelcoming

I used to have all wooden floors but now have lovely, warm carpets that are soft on my
feet. Am not obsessed with them but much prefer them. I think they look just as nice personally.

I love carpet. Its warm and soft underfoot, muffles a massive amount of sound. It means if im playing on the floor with my children I can sit or lie comfortably.

People from warmer countries never seem to like it, not used to it I guess. Personally I like it. We have carpets in the bedroom and it feels nice underfoot. My kids are not keen on wearing slippers so it keeps their feet warmer in the colder months. Whilst we may be having warmer summers now it is still cold for most of the year where we are in our part of Scotland. We have wood flooring downstairs and bathrooms are tiled. They see the most traffic and are easier to clean as we have young children. The carpets get hoovered daily and I hire out a cleaning machine once a year to give them a freshen up. I don't have pets otherwise I would have chosen flooring throughout.

I wouldn't let a house with flooring everywhere put me off buying it but I don't like the trend for marble flooring everywhere. Seems very impractical when you have children learning to walk.

I think I'd rather the stairs were carpeted.

It was a nightmare to keep clean as unlike hardfloors it took hours to dry each week when I shampood them

Ive never met anyone who shampoos their carpet regularly, let alone weekly, you will likely ruin a good wool carpet doing that and destroy its ability to repel stains etc. You hoover it, job done. We swapped to wood in our hall and its been disappointingly high maintenance, you can see every crumb of dust, i end up sweeping or hoovering almost daily.