Wool Carpets and Area Rugs

Are you looking for a durable yet elegant solution to your flooring needs? Do you like carpets and hardwood floors, but find it difficult to decide between the two? Well, a wool area rug could be the perfect solution for you.

Wool is a natural material that is both sustainable and long-lasting. For flooring purposes, wool is a strong material that has been used for making carpets and rugs for centuries. Wool rugs may generally be more expensive than synthetic nylon rugs and carpets, but because wool rugs are fire retardant, dirt resistant, and age gracefully, this adds a great deal to their value.

Wool rugs from New Zealand are considered the highest quality wools you can buy. Rugs from other places like India, Australia and Persia also offer excellent quality and interesting designs and textures.

Types of Wool Rugs and Carpets

Wool rugs may be braided, cut loop, hand tufted or machine made. Cut loop rugs are the most common type of wool carpets, while braided wool rugs are generally more durable but more expensive. Hand tufted rugs are also more durable compared to machine made rugs, and will usually last longer in high traffic areas. They actually last up to three times longer and their value might increase with aging. Machine made rugs are not knotted. The fibers in a machine made rug are held in place by a latex backing and this form is called a tufted backing.

Advantages of Wool Rugs and Carpets

• Fire Retardant – Wool rugs are naturally fire retardant. They can be set on fire but self extinguish when the source of the flame is removed. If you have butter fingers a wool rug is much less likely to be damaged by that dropped cigarette or candle than a synthetic rug.
• Absorb pollutants – Wool rugs do not emit any volatile organic compounds. On the contrary, wool rugs absorb gases like sulfur-di-oxide and formaldehyde that may be emitted by paints and other household chemicals. Wool rugs therefore improve the quality of air in the house and reduce incidence of asthma and allergy. A wool rug continues to absorb pollutants for up to 30 years.
• Energy saving – Wool can absorb excess humidity. It also reduces the load on air conditioning thus leading to savings in your electricity bill.
• Graceful aging – Wool ages gracefully. In fact the value of authentic handmade wool carpets and rugs increases with age as they are highly prized by collectors.
• Cleanliness – Unlike Synthetic rugs, Wool rugs do not accumulate static electricity. Since they are not charged they do not attract dust. A wool rug only traps dust that can easily be removed by vacuuming and dry cleaning. In contrast dust tends to stick to a synthetic rug and is much more difficult to remove.
• Sound and heat insulation –Wool rugs dampen sound and improve thermal insulation. They are an excellent choice for your home theater or game room.

Care and maintenance

Wool has an outer covering of lanolin that makes it stain resistant. Wipe the liquid spill quickly and it is likely that none of it will be able to seep in and stain your precious rug. A little blotting after spills and weekly vacuuming are sufficient to keep a good wool rug in pristine condition.

Wool can be harvested from sheep year after year. It is therefore a renewable material. A good wool rug outlasts a synthetic rug by 40 years. This means that it has a smaller ecological footprint than synthetic rugs. The qualities of wool rugs have made it the favorite material for carpets and rugs. A wool rug can enhance your living experience, is the object of envy and improves the value of your property too. Investing in a good wool rug is therefore a good decision. Contempo Floor Coverings has a wide range of wool carpets and rugs from New Zealand, England, Australia and India that you can choose from.

Visit our Los Angeles Flooring showrooms for more information about Flooring.