Blog for Dover Floor Covering
- Details
- Written by: Jeff Dean
Dover Flooring Blog
September 11th, 2015
Are Berbers Going Away?
There was a time when Berbers had a large market share in the carpet industry. Probably about 15 to 20 years ago (where does the time go?) lots of people were asking for Berber carpet. Why was this?
Well, for years consumers had been buying "trackless" carpet. This was a variation of the old plush carpets that you really don't see much anymore. Styles come and styles go and consumers were just tired of the same old thing. After all, how many different ways can you construct new carpet? Trackless carpet is called "textured" in the carpet industry. The old plushes that had a smooth, shiny finish that showed every foot print and vacuum mark were becoming passe and consumers were looking for new carpet that wouldn't show everything right after vacuuming.
So the carpet mills started making textures (trackless). Friezes became popular. Friezes are textured carpets that are really really textured.
Some people likened them to spaghetti because a heavy frieze could look like spaghetti. They didn't show foot prints or vacuum marks. Consumers loved that.
About this time, the carpet mills started to really market the Berbers. They weren't cut pile like the plushes, twists and friezes. They were different. Berbers were made in a loop construction style. This was a very high wearing style indeed! Carpets that are made in the cut pile style will wear on the tips (where the cut pile is). Because the carpet yarn was cut, then the tips would wear and fray with normal wear and tear. Berbers, on the other hand, didn't have this weakness. The top of the carpet where people walked was now a loop and hence the wear was on a the sides of the yarn, not the tips. The side of carpet yarn is almost impossible to wear through with normal residential traffic. So Berbers were very high wearing.
Also, because of the loop construction, the Berber carpet would be very resilient. As the loops were trod upon, the loop would press down and then bounce back up when walked off. So Berbers were high wearing and resilient. Both good traits.
Some cons to Berber carpets was the fact that carpet seams would show more than on a cut pile carpet and the loops could get caught, pull and run. So why are Berber carpets going the way of the dodo bird? Well, really, I don't know......
Where once I had probably 25% of my carpet samples in the Berber style, now I probably have 5%. People are just not asking for Berbers much these days. As Berber styles get discontinued by the mills, they don't replace them with new Berber styles. So as they get discontinued, my supply of Berber samples just keeps shrinking. Now I have very few and most of them are solid color Berbers. The flecked Berbers are almost gone.
So if you want a Berber carpet, you may want to get it soon as the Berber style is slowly going away.....of course, it'll come back around in 10 years with a slightly different slant. After all, who would have thought that the shag would ever come back, eh? LOL
- Details
- Written by: Jeff Dean
Dover Flooring Blog
August 23rd, 2015
Prefinished Hardwood Flooring vs Site Finished Hardwood Flooring
Which is better. Prefinished hardwood flooring or site finished hardwood flooring? Well, there are pros and cons to both.
Prefinished hardwood flooring is a wood floor that is finished at the factory. Unfinished hardwood, whether engineered or solid hard wood, will have a urethane finish applied at a finishing facility. This urethane wear layer will be infused with aluminum oxide and UV cured. This system produces a very hard finish that is resistant to scratching and gouging. This type of system will provide the hardest surface for a residential hardwood flooring job.
A site finished hardwood floor will consist of an unfinished solid wood floor of any wood species installed. After installation of the unfinished wood floor, the floor will be sanded down and sealed. After sealing the floor, 2 or more coats of urethane will be applied to finish the floor. One advantage to this type of system is the floor itself will be totally sealed (at least at first it will be). This keeps water from getting between the boards which can cause damage. As time goes by and seasons with varying humidity levels pass, the wood floor itself will expand and contract causing cracks between the individual boards. Now the floor is no longer totally sealed from the top and probably negates the only advantage to this type of wood floor.
Another advantage of a prefinished hardwood flooring product is that the finish is already applied and dry so you can walk all over it once its installed. A site finished product will take days to completely cure and most people will have to stay out of their house during the finishing process. This can be very inconvenient.
Lastly, unlike in the past, prefinished hardwood flooring is more cost effective. It costs less to install a prefinished product than it does to install, sand down and finish an unfinished wood floor. So overall, I would almost always recommend a prefinished wood floor over a site finished wood floor.
- Details
- Written by: Jeff Dean
Dover Flooring Blog
August 8th, 2015
Minor Hardwood Flooring Fixes....
If you have a hardwood floor then you know how it can be when you get a surface scratch, dent or chip. I would say that every hardwood floor in everybody's house will have surface scratches. Maybe a dent or two when you dropped that can of corn on your floor. Or gouged your wood floor when you dragged something across it. Maybe even a chip out of the edge of one of your planks.
Here are some easy fixes for these situations
If you have surface scratches that only scratched into the urethane surface, there really isn't much you can do short of refinishing your floor. If the scratch went through the surface and into the wood than you can purchase a wood repair kit. The wood repair kit should contain at least a couple of stain sticks, wax filler crayons and a small bottle of urethane among other items. With a small surface scratch you can try the urethane and see if that will fill it satisfactorily. If not then a refinish will probably be the only way to fix these. Remember, every wood floor will get surface scratches and is normal. I wouldn't recommend a refinish until the top wear layer is showing considerable wear (but not worn into the stain. Try to refinish before the surface wear wears into the stain layer).
With a surface scratch that has penetrated the stain layer then a stain stick will fix the problem. Just apply the stain to the deep scratch. Make sure you use a stain stick color that comes as close as possible to the color of your existing floor. This should do the trick to hide the scratch. You can apply a thin layer of urethane to the area after it dries if you want.
With gouges, you should use the wax stick. Just rub the edge of the wax stick into the gouge. Work it back and forth until the go
uge is completely filled with the wax. Then rub the surface to smooth out the wax filler until it blends in with the surface height. Again, use the correct color of wax filler so as to blend in the best.
You can also fill in chips that have occurred in the edges of the boards with the wax filler crayon. If you fill an edge chip, you will need to use the edge of a credit card (or like tool) to "form" the edges to match the rest of the individual hardwood board.
These methods will normally repair any unsightly surface issues that accrue over time in any hardwood flooring. Larger issues such as large gouges, large chips or cracked boards can be addressed.
If you have a prefinished hardwood floor than you can remove and replace individual boards. Even from the middle of the floor. A site finished product is much harder to repair. Once you replace a board with an unfinished piece of hardwood flooring then you must refinish it to match the existing floor which is very hard to make look good. In fact, most hardwood flooring refinishers will not do a repair like this because the risk of the customer being unhappy with the finished product is very high.
This is another advantage of having a prefinished hardwood flooring product installed in your home instead of a site finished hardwood product (along with the fact that a pre-finished hardwood floor has a UV cured wearlayer with aluminum oxide embedded in it which forms an extremely hard finish that you cannot achieve with a site finished hardwood flooring product).
These are the most common and easily administered fixes for hardwood flooring surface maintenance!
- Details
- Written by: Jeff Dean
Dover Flooring Blog
July 24th, 2015
Carpet Cleaning and Maintenance Tips......
I would like to provide a few tips about carpet cleaning and care. These are general tips and apply to most carpet styles. Different carpet yarns need to be cleaned with differing cleaning solutions. Check out our carpet cleaning and maintenance page.
1. Don't scrub the carpet to remove a stain. When you scrub a carpet you can unwind the carpet yarn. This will cause the carpet to look unnatural at the stained area and cause the carpet to mat quicker in the future since the integrity of the carpet yarn has been compromised. The twist level and subsequent heat set of the twist is what provides resiliency and wear ability so when you unwind the carpet tips your carpet will not wear or perform as it was designed to. So don't scrub the stain. Blot the stain.
2. Don't let the stain sit. Some people figure that they will let the stain sit and dry so it will be easier to remove. Nope. The sooner you get the stain the better. The longer a stain sits the more it can seep into the padding. Have you ever cleaned a stain and then found that it came back the next day? That's because the stain that seeped into the padding is wicking up into the carpet again and so reappears. So get that stain as soon as you can.
3. Always test a new cleaning solution on an inconspicuous area to make sure it doesn't mess up your carpet. Different carpet yarns require different cleaning methods and cleaning products. For example: solution dyed nylon carpets can be cleaned with a solution of half water and half bleach. If you were to use this carpet cleaning solution on any other types of carpet yarn it would cause large white spots. So the correct cleaning solution is important.
4. Have your carpet professionally cleaned every 12 to 18 months. Most carpet mills require you to clean your carpet every 12 to 18 months to maintain the carpet warranty. Cleaning your carpet every 12 to 18 months will remove foreign particles that if not removed can actually abrade your carpet. Sand down the fibers if you will. So professional whole room carpet cleaning is a must. Also, the steam extraction method is what most carpet mills require. Dry cleaning doesn't maintain the carpet warranty. Plus steam extraction will actually perk up the carpet yarns. Yarns that were crushed down through normal wear can be revitalized with steam extraction (depending on the carpet yarn of course).
Well, there you have it. The carpet cleaning basics. If you need more information on carpet cleaning or need a spot cleaning guide, click here.
