Sisal carpet - lots of questions... Mainly is it a solution to my dust allergy?

[Lexilicious]

We are doing a fairly major overhaul of half of the house, and consequently have the opportunity to sort out the main triggers of my dust allergy. Cutting down on upholstery when we get to the redecorating stage basically, and for furniture we're going to get a wood framed bed with a wool-padded mattress, and a leather sofa.

So far so good but floor coverings are vexing me. We have wood flooring in half of the downstairs, and we were planning on wood flooring in the hall and living room. However the living room has a concrete slab floor and would need to be made 'warmer' either by electric UFH (too much ££) or lots of rugs to walk on (negating the undustyness of the hard flooring). I briefly flirted with wood+rugs for our bedroom but don't fancy it. So we'll have carpet there as long as we have a bed with legs that you can get a vacuum under.

My question is, does anyone have sisal carpeting and is it the solution I currently think it might be for both our bedroom and living room? Is it hard wearing enough for the money? (It's about £5/sq m more than the 80%wool /20% synthetic carpets we will probably get for the other two bedrooms and the stairs.) Does it need a special/expensive underlay? Is it easy to clean, both in terms of vacuuming and also spills/stains?

Is there a different solution I haven't thought of? Tyvm in advance...

sisal will create and hold dust. I've only seen it as quite a rough fibre, in coarse string and mats that you can take outside and hose down, but I suppose it may be possible to make a fine thread out of it. I can't see it will be any better for allergies than any other mat or carpet.

You can put laminate or wooden overlay floors on insulating slabs, on a wooden floor, though if it was less than an inch thick it wouldn't make much diference. This would give some work in cutting doors and moving skirtings. The very thin foam or fibre underlays you see around have very little insulating effect (remember your loft might have 250mm/10 inches of insulation)

you might consider a polypropylene carpet, which is hard wearing and will withstand quite violent cleaning (including bleach) so I imagine you could get a Vax or similar shampooer, and wet-suck-clean it quite often.

It seems to me you are going to have quite a lot of frequent hoovering to do as you have carpets in some rooms.

Thanks, very interesting. I read that as a natural fibre, Sisal has tannins and oils which repel the dust mite (similar effect as the lanolin in the wool layer of a hypoallergenic mattress), so although it will hold dust in its weave, dust mites and therefore the faeces which are actually what causes the allergic reaction would be reduced.

Your wood flooring point is useful too; these rooms we're doing are a total blank canvas so all door frames, skirtings, etc will be new and therefore we can do whatever we like with thicknesses. However there is another problem I didn't mention in the living room which is relevant. There was a small extension put on the front of the house about 20 years ago to create a sort of a large bay window, and although it doesn't look like there has been any shift or settling above ground, the concrete slab floor is cracked all along the line of the original front of the house, and the extension part is raised about an inch relative to the rest. It doesn't look like it's still moving but it could be due to swelling of the (very clay-y) ground beneath the foundations. This will mean latex screeding the floor to even it out, but it would take a lot of underlay/foam to be able to confidently have wood flooring on top that wouldn't go badly wrong if there was more movement in the ground - hence moving back towards carpet of some sort. We can cope with hoovering a few times a week or maybe daily as recommended here!

DH, the man who will actually refuse to sleep in 50/50 polycotton sheets, is never going to go for a 100% polypropylene carpet. We're going to go to an independent flooring shop this weekend and consider all the options, but it's useful to hear experiences so thanks again.

We have semi-solid wood flooring over concrete in the hall, living room and dining room and it's not cold at all, I sit on the floor often with DD and it's perfectly comfortable.

The kitchen, on the other hand, has tiles over the concrete and it's freezing. On hot days the cats come in from the garden and lie on it to cool down!

I honestly don't think that wood over concrete is a problem.

We have sisal in living room, hallway and stairs. It was husband's choice before I moved in, followed by two cats and one baby. Good: feels nice, looks nice, hides dirt & cat hair well. Cats don't use it as a giant scratch pad (but did have to be told off a few times in stairs). The Bad: when you spill something on it - oh DEAR god!!!! It doesn't just get blotted with a clean cloth. Nope, it makes a stain. And the Ugly: water will leave a stain. So the few times I've had to get a stain out with water, I've then had to use a hairdryer to dry the spot. You can't steam clean them. There are specialists who can "dry clean" so check they exist in your area first.

We also have wood over concrete floors and it's fine.

Linoleum is the best floor covering for people with dust allergy and it's made from natural ingredients. I wish I had not fitted a sisal carpet. It holds the dust especially round the edges by the skirting and it's a devil to clean because you can't use water.

Thanks everyone for the advice, I've been to a carpet/flooring place and he said only to fit sisal if you prioritise style above everything else completely!! We are going with the best quality laminate we can find for the living room (want a dark wood colour but can't afford walnut solid/engineered flooring) and good quality underlay. Upstairs in bedrooms, it's got to be carpet I suppose - did think about Lino/vinyl but find it a bit utilitarian. Child bedroom will be 100% synthetic for cleaning purposes, and the others will be 80/20 but a tight weave. We're also going to upgrade our vacuum to one which is on the Allergy Uk approved list, I.e. one with a HEPA filter (whatever that is??!!)