Carpet

A carpet is any loom-woven, felted textile or grass floor covering. The term was also used for table and wall coverings, as carpets were not commonly used on the floor in European interiors until the 18th century. The hand-knotted pile carpet probably originated in Central Asia between the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC. Carpet-making was introduced to Spain in 10th century by the Moors. The Crusades brought Turkish carpets to all of Europe, where they were primarily hung on walls or used on tables. Only with the opening of trade routes in the 17th century were significant numbers of Persian rugs introduced to Western Europe.

Some use the words carpet and rug interchangeably. Historically, however, some have distinguished between carpet and rug based on size (the former being larger) or use (carpets on floors, rugs on beds or on the hearth). For the sake of clarity, some textile scholars also differentiate between carpets and carpeting. In this usage, the latter are wall-to-wall and are often woven or tufted as "roll goods", most often in 12 foot widths but sometimes in up to 15 foot widths. In the real estate and home improvement industries a distinction is made between carpet (or carpeting) and rug. The former indicates a covering that is affixed to a floor and the latter a floor covering that is loose-laid, most often for decorative purposes.

Typical machine used to cut and re-roll carpet lengths for installation delivery

Carpet types

Swatches of machine-made carpet

The global carpet market for domestic and industrial end use is dominated by three manufacturing processes:

Woven: The carpet is produced on a loom similar to woven cloth and is a cut pile. Normally many coloured yarns are used and this process is capable of producing intricate patterns from pre-determined designs. These carpets are normally the most expensive.

Tufted: The carpet is produced on a tufting machine using a single-colored or sometimes non-colored yarn. If non-colored yarn is used the carpet will later be dyed or printed with a design. Tufted carpets can be either cut pile, loop pile or a combination of both. Tufting machines produce many more metres of carpet per hour than weaving does, and tufted carpets are usually low- to medium-priced.

Modern tufting technology allows basic geometric patterns to be produced in addition to solid color. The fibers used to create the patterns are twisted into yarns and then "tufted" into carpet. Because tufting machines work like enormous sewing machines with multiple needles, tufted carpet can be produced quickly. For this reason, most of the carpet manufactured today is tufted rather than woven.

A ColorTEC carpet is manufactured on a tufting machine but is capable of producing a design that is close to that of a woven carpet. ColorTec carpet can have a design up to 20 yards (18m) in length and allows the whole floorscape to be produced rather than small patterns being repeated.

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Resources for

Stair Runner, Stair Carpet