I love carpet for the look, feel and quietness. So will be replacing one of our IP, for living, stairs and bedrooms. Tiles for kitchen/dining, laundry and bathrooms. Must admit a little lazy to research and google, and talking to carpeters they all have their own opinion, so here I am...... looking for personal experiences, especially recent ones. We are in Sunny Brisbane. In the past we have chosen a thicker underlay with cheapie carpet, not too shabby although it's a little thin and I dont like the pattern. It was nylon. What type of carpet would be good for rental properties ?Think international students and young families. We want something durable and easy to maintain. Not too pricey of course but not too cheap_and_nasty. Wool is obviously out, cut or loop?
We generally do the 2nd bottom range of carpets. The bottom of the range is not fit for my pets to sleep on, but 2nd one up is well priced, hard wearing and looks fine. We just use the standard underlay. Carpet is nice in bedroooms, but generally prefer other things in living areas because they're more heavily trafficked or more likelihood of food spills etc. From a depreciation perspective I prefer laminate over tiles.
I've just selected some from CarpetCall. It's made by Frontline and the range is called Kinross and I selected Teahouse (warm neutral) and Black Oyster (charcoal) for 2 different houses.
Hey @Pumpkin, I'm a bit of a carpet nerd so I'll try to keep this short, haha! You're on the right track. You're probably going to pick a Polypropylene and I agree to put it on a thick underlay (underlay is cheap and masks the flatness of cheap carpet). The question is whether you want to get flat "commercial grade" poly (yuck) which is basically indestructible, or a nicer mid-pile cut poly (by far the most common rental carpet). There's very little in it with price but the 'mid-pile' crushes easily. If it were a nice house (e.g. inner city executive) you might consider a loop pile Solution Dyed Nylon, but that's generally not popular for rentals because of the price- though it's actually more hard wearing than polypropylene and MUCH nicer. Don't be tempted into loop pile polypropylene, it crushes really badly really fast. We've got access to trade price carpet if you want to compare quotes.
Another question gentlemen - I just put SD Nylon into our IP because I want it to still look pretty decent for at least five years in case we sell then. I have seen poly turn to garbage within five years. If the Redbook stain dyed nylon Endless Charm has a fifteen year warranty, is it still likely to look and feel pretty good in ten years?
We put the exact same carpet in a unit last year, great stuff! SDN is about as tough as it gets, and Feltex is a pretty good quality carpet. If it's not abused it should definitely last out ten years. On a side note, I've seen polypropylene turn to rubbish as soon as a year in a brand new home. Some of it is absolute crap.
This may sound a little odd as I have a carpet cleaning business (35yrs) but if you were to see what comes out of carpet, you'd be considering tiles, lino, or timber flooring. Both for longevity and the hygiene issue.
Glad I smoked you out Tom! Thanks for sharing that big info, will need to digest and research more.... Cheers,
Taj, what did you mean by "what comes out of carpet"? Bacteria, worms? Personally I really like carpet for the feel and homelyness. Tiles are too hard on my back and feet. Timber for kitchen or other high-traffic area for me.
Whilst carpet is soft underfoot and provides additional warmth to rooms, it traps no end of bacteria, allergens and quite often mould, especially in moist areas. For these reasons I suggested other flooring materials. I agree that tiles can seem a bit too hard, but, they are easy to clean. So a bit of a trade off I suppose. However, with a flexible timber flooring you have the best of both worlds. Not overly hard underfoot and once again pretty simple to keep clean and hygienic. Climate plays a role as well. Over the years I am seeing more lino, tiles, timber going down in Sub/ Tropical areas as the warmth factor isn't required.
