There is always a war between which one is better, carpet or wood flooring. Speaking of carpet, wood flooring is costlier, but there are some carpets that costs a lot more. Regardless of this, in order to find out which one is better between carpeting and hardwood flooring, here are the pros and cons of both of them so that it will be easy to differentiate between them.
HARDWOOD FLOORING
PROS
1. Aesthetics
Hardwood flooring is always good in looks and it is very difficult not to like it. It gives an awesome look and an outstanding look to most rooms in your house. It serves as a great flooring material and your choice in flooring is very easy if you hate it. But you will go nuts if you love it.
2. Cleanliness
Hardwood is much cleaner as compared to carpet cleaning. There are little to no dirt and dust collected in hardwood flooring. Speaking the truth, there is a small amount of dust collection, but it can be easily swept or a quick vacuum can be done easily on it. For carpeting, unless a massive steam cleaning is done, it cannot be perfectly clean ever. It doesn’t matter how much effort you provide in carpet cleaning, there is always some amount of dirt in it. Your home becomes full of chemicals after carpet cleaning.
3. Durability
When carpeting is established in the house, it is done for a specific period of time and after that it has to be replaced. The carpets can’t have a long life. In case of hardwood flooring, there is no problem with replacement. As compared to carpet, wood flooring that is well maintained can last decades without any maintenance work required.
4. Flexibility with area rugs
After establishing hardwood flooring in the house, area rugs can be added throughout the house. You get the benefit of carpet flooring along with hardwood flooring. The only disadvantage is that area rugs are not so cheap and costs some high amount of money.
5. Easy to rearrange furniture
Hardwood flooring doesn’t give any problem while rearranging the furniture’s in your house. As long as the bottom of your furniture has paddings, rearranging furniture’s will be like a piece of cake. The only downside of this is that if the furniture is not properly placed, there is always a chance that it will move out of the place easily.
CONS
1. Noise Levels
Hardwood floorings are somewhat noisy in nature. The apartment below the room with hardwood flooring experiences a lot of noise. To solve this problem, area rugs can be used, but carpeting will give you more benefit. A very quiet home environment is provided by carpeting.
2. Scratches
No matter how hard you try not to, but there are always scratches appearing on your hardwood floors. There are people who like this kind of floor, but there are also many people in this world who prefer pristine. You have to always keep in mind the fact that your floor will get scratched if you prefer hardwood flooring.
3. Cold
Hardwood flooring when touched are cold in nature and there is no insulation provided with this flooring. You can wear sleepers if you want, but hardwood flooring may not be for you if you are walking barefoot in your home as you may catch cold every time.
4. Hard surface
If you have small kids in your home, then hardwood flooring is not good for you as you and your small child cannot crawl on the hard surface and play on it. If there is carpeting in your house, then this matter will be solved easily.
5. The bottom of furniture requires pads
If you want to protect your flooring from getting scratched, then at the bottom of your furniture you need to place protective pads. There is a small amount of hassle, but at the end of the day it is worth it.
CARPETING
PROS
1. Warmer
Carpeting provides a great insulation to your house. You can easily walk barefooted in your home without concerning about catching cold. As compared to hardwood flooring, it is much more comfortable.
2. Muffles sound
As compared to hardwood flooring, there is a very small amount of noise produced in carpeting. You don’t have to worry about the people in the apartment below your room.
3. Aesthetics and selection
There is a huge amount options in carpeting, as compared to hardwood flooring. If you want carpeting to be done of a certain required size, then you will get it. This is not the case in hardwood flooring.
4. Furniture stays put
This is good in one way and bad in another way. The good thing is, if you want your furniture’s to be in a fixed place without moving out of place. The bad thing is, you cannot rearrange the furniture easily on carpeting. But as there is very less amount of rearrangement done, this is a great benefit of carpeting.
CONS
1. Dirty
Carpeting is much, much dirtier than hardwood floor, even if every other day you are vacuuming it. Cleaning the carpet is much more time-consuming and difficult. Cleaning can be very much simpler if our whole living area has hardwood flooring.
2. Aesthetics
Hardwood flooring looks much better than carpeting. Carpeting is less attractive, but it depends from person to person.
3. Replacement cost
As compared to wood flooring, carpeting has a shorter lifespan. Hence, carpets need to be replaced quickly than hardwood flooring and this costs you more money.
4. Stains
Even though there are steam cleaners that guarantees removing any type of stain, there is till chance of getting a permanent carpet stain. Wood flooring can also stain like from moisture.
5. Chemicals
Cleaning of carpets requires chemicals, which is harmful for our health, especially steam cleaning. If you don’t want chemicals to come into your home, hardwood flooring will be a better option for you.
CONCLUSION
After mentioning all the pros and cons of both carpeting and hardwood flooring, which one is better truly depends on the individual. It is purely on personal preference and some people may like carpeting, whereas some people may like hardwood flooring. It is recommended to have a room-by-room analysis for selecting carpet or hardwood flooring.