Werner Braun: Carpet Good Choice for High-Traffic Areas

Carpet stands up in high traffic areas

by Carpet and Rug Institute's Werner Braun

Contrary to what is often assumed, carpet is easier and less expensive to clean and maintain over time than hard surface flooring. This myth-busting fact and others are explained in the second of a series of articles Carpet and Rug Institute President Werner Braun has prepared for Dalton, Georgia’s newspaper, the Dalton Daily Citizen. In the article, titled, “Carpet Stands Up in High Traffic Areas,” Braun refers to a study done by the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC) that demonstrates that carpet can save money in a commercial setting like a school or business. The IICRC’s study looked at the costs associated with various floor coverings extrapolated over 22 years, the average expected usable life of a hard surface floor in a school in schools. The study found that, even when factoring the costs of replacement, installation, cleaning supplies, and labor, carpet was still more economical.

“The 36-week study tested school’s light-to-medium traffic areas and heavy traffic areas on both carpeting and hard surface flooring. On the light-to-medium traffic areas (conference rooms, teacher offices, break areas, auditoriums, media centers, administrative offices and such) the study showed it costs 55 cents a square foot to maintain carpet for a school year while it costs $1.08 to maintain a hard surface flooring. In the heavy traffic areas (corridors, classrooms etc.), it was even more diverse, costing 61 cents for the square foot of carpet compared to $1.72 for the hard surface. This includes both labor and chemical costs.

When everything was added up, even I was a little taken back by the number, especially when I started doing some of my own arithmetic. Let’s take those numbers and stretch them on out to a 50,000 square foot flooring space, or about the size of Dalton Middle School. Based on the labor and chemical costs derived from the study, it would cost $30,456 a year to maintain carpet if we assumed all 50,000 square feet were a high traffic area. In the same situation, it would cost $86,026 to maintain hard surface for a comparable high traffic area…53 percent higher per square foot than carpet in high traffic areas and 31 percent higher in the light-to-medium traffic areas. I don’t have all the answers, but the numbers speak for themselves.

Aside from carpet’s many other inherent features in a business, school or household environment, one of its best features might be its ability to help make some of those other difficult decisions a little easier thanks to the money it can put back into your pocket.”

And who couldn’t use a little more money these days?

Thank you, Werner

~Bethany