Compare carpet and linoleum | Determine the best coverage

Our experts in the field of con­struc­tion and repair have ana­lyzed the prop­er­ties of two types of floor­ing mate­ri­als — car­pet and linoleum, eval­u­at­ed their advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages in com­par­i­son, which will help you choose the most suit­able one.

carpet

Floor cov­er­ing that resem­bles a car­pet. Man­u­fac­tur­ers pro­duce sev­er­al types of car­pet, dif­fer­ing in the mate­r­i­al of man­u­fac­ture and prop­er­ties:

1. 
   woven car­pet — made on the basis of nat­ur­al jute mesh fab­ric, to which a pile is attached, con­sist­ing of wool fibers or poly­mer fibers. Has increased strength;

2. 
   nee­dle stitch — made on the basis of jute, syn­thet­ic felt or rub­ber. With the help of a nee­dle of a spe­cial machine, the threads that form a pile in the form of small loops are pulled through the base and fixed on it;

3. 
   nee­dle-punched — man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy is the same as in the man­u­fac­ture of nee­dle-stitched car­pet, the dif­fer­ence is that in this case, ser­rat­ed nee­dles are used that entan­gle the fibers of the pile;

4. 
   flocked — are made using equip­ment that gen­er­ates a sta­t­ic elec­tric dis­charge, as a result of which the fibers of the pile take a strict­ly ver­ti­cal posi­tion, after which they are attached to the base.

Car­pet can be divid­ed into two groups: nat­ur­al and arti­fi­cial. For the pro­duc­tion of nat­ur­al car­pet, wool, silk, cot­ton, jute, linen, coconut fibers are used, for arti­fi­cial — fibers from poly­ester, polyamide and poly­acryl. In addi­tion, the car­pet is divid­ed accord­ing to the length of the pile: with a short pile — up to 5 mm long, medi­um length — up to 8 mm, long pile — over 8 mm.

Linoleum

Linoleum, like car­pet, can be divid­ed into two types — nat­ur­al and arti­fi­cial.

Nat­ur­al linoleum is made exclu­sive­ly from nat­ur­al mate­ri­als — with a jute or linen base, on which a mix­ture of wood flour, lin­seed oil, lime­stone and nat­ur­al wood resin is applied.

Arti­fi­cial is divid­ed into sub­species depend­ing on the mate­r­i­al of man­u­fac­ture:

1. 
   PVC — can be made on the basis of nat­ur­al fab­ric (jute or felt) or on the basis of fiber­glass and oth­er syn­thet­ic mate­ri­als. PVC linoleum based on foamed PVC is also pro­duced. A mate­r­i­al in which sev­er­al dif­fer­ent com­po­nents are present is called het­ero­ge­neous, made exclu­sive­ly from PVC vari­eties — homo­ge­neous;

2. 
   alkyd or glyptal - it is made with a fab­ric base, on which a mix­ture of alkyd or glyptal syn­thet­ic resins is applied with the addi­tion of fillers and dyes;

3. 
   nitro­cel­lu­lose - made with­out a base of nitro­cel­lu­lose with fillers — gyp­sum, plas­ti­ciz­er, col­or­ing pig­ments;

4. 
   relin — made on the basis of rub­ber, cov­ered with a lay­er of syn­thet­ic rub­ber. It can be used to cov­er the floors of tech­ni­cal rooms, garages, swim­ming pools, gyms, etc. It is not used for res­i­den­tial premis­es, as it is capa­ble of releas­ing sub­stances harm­ful to health.

The mate­r­i­al is sub­di­vid­ed and marked by class­es with a two-dig­it num­ber, in which the first dig­it deter­mines the pur­pose — for res­i­den­tial, office and com­mer­cial or indus­tri­al premis­es, and the sec­ond — the degree of load that the mate­r­i­al can with­stand — low, medi­um, high and very high.

Table of advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages

The main differences between materials

The main dif­fer­ences between the mate­ri­als are as fol­lows:

1. have a dif­fer­ent sur­face tex­ture: linoleum is smooth, car­pet is fleecy;

2. car­pet has a high­er cost than linoleum;

3. linoleum has a wider scope of use, car­pet is lim­it­ed in use for rooms with high humid­i­ty and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of sig­nif­i­cant tem­per­a­ture changes;

4. linoleum is eas­i­er to fit;

5. linoleum has a longer ser­vice life.

How are the materials similar?

The sim­i­lar­i­ty of mate­ri­als is as fol­lows:

1. can be made from nat­ur­al or arti­fi­cial ingre­di­ents;

2. in some types of both mate­ri­als, the same com­po­nents are present, for exam­ple, nat­ur­al jute fab­ric as a base;

3. can be used for floor­ing in rooms of the same pur­pose.

Con­clu­sions: It is impos­si­ble to say unequiv­o­cal­ly which is bet­ter — linoleum or car­pet, since there are many vari­eties of both mate­ri­als. It is nec­es­sary to select the appro­pri­ate one based on the fol­low­ing con­di­tions: the func­tion­al pur­pose of the room and, accord­ing­ly, the paten­cy — the load on the floors, the mode of oper­a­tion of the room — the degree of humid­i­ty, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of sud­den tem­per­a­ture changes, the aes­thet­ic com­po­nent — the nature of the inte­ri­or design of the room.