What you need to know about carpet padding

When you buy a carpet or lay a carpet down in your home, you need to think about carpet padding. Carpet padding helps to extend the life of your carpet by helping it to wear evenly, while keeping it from the hardness of the floor beneath. If you have an area rug, the food padding will help to protect the rug as well as help to keep the rug from slipping. There are three basic carpet pads which you can buy.

Fibre

One of the material from which carpet pads are made is fibre. This can include a felt carpet underlay, as well as wool, nylon, jute, or polyester. These pads are woven and - except for the jute - are made of recycled materials. The jute is biodegradable. The felt pads could be latexed or rubberised, which means that a rubber or latex coating may be applied to one or both sides.

Foam

Foam is one of the most popular materials for carpet padding. One of the benefits of foam pads is that they can be recycled easily. Foam pads could include foam rubber which has a latex base. The latex could be either natural or synthetic. Some of the benefits of these pads is that they are moth- and mildew-proof,
insect-proof, and non-allergenic.

Rubber

Rubber pads, like foam pads, can be recyclable as well as be made from recycled materials. Like foam, these pads are moth- and mildew-proof,
insect-proof, and non-allergenic. They can also be "more resistant to odours." The rubber pads can be made of sponge rubber and have two styles: waffle and flat. The waffle is made as one continuous sheet that has the waffle pattern cut into it. The flat pad is also manufactured as a continuous sheet. Both styles of pads have another layer glued to them which makes them stiffer as well as easier to install. These pads are very resilient and age well. One of the drawbacks with the waffle pad is that it could hold in moisture. Other drawbacks for both style of foam pads is that they can be adversely affected by dry cleaning products, and they are "sensitive to heat."