Applied Floor Finishes
pages 231-245 “Interior Construction and Detailing
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Thin materials applied as a single layer include:
carpet: wool, nylon, acrylic, polyester, olefin
resilient tile: vinyl, rubber, cork
resilient sheet flooring: vinyl sheet, rubber sheet, linoleum
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Finishes applied to floor surfaces:
stain
urethane
varnish
paint
Concrete floor stain colors and
hardwood floor with a urethane finish.
Carpet:
used in three different forms:
sheet carpet, carpet tiles, and rugs.
• Sheet carpet: commonly manufactured in 12’ wide rolls.
• Carpet tiles are individual squares of carpet, typically 24”x24”,
18”x18”, and 12”x12”.
• Rugs are soft floor coverings laid on the floor but not attached to
it.
Carpet tiles
Rugs
Native American handwoven rugs:
Navajo
Native American weavers
A loom can be a very simply constructed device
that can be used to produce stunningly
beautiful rugs
Small Looms
Sheet carpet
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Fiber Performance in Carpet
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Fiber Strength
Appearance Retention
Stain Resistant*
Soil Resistant**
Cleaning Very Good
Available Colors
Pilling & Fuzzing
Resistance to Cleaners
Nylon (filament) Nylon (staple)
Olefin (filament) Polyester (staple) Wool (staple)
Excellent
Excellent
Very Good
Very Good
Very Good
Excellent
Excellent
Very Good
Excellent
Fair
Excellent
Fair
Good
Fair
Very Good
Excellent
Excellent
Excellent
Very Good
Very Good
Very Good
Excellent
Fair
Very Good
Excellent
Fair
Very Good
Good
Very Good
Very Good
Fair
Very Good
Good
Excellent
Very Good
Very Good
Fair
Fair
Good
The following text is taken from:
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Carpet.html
• Carpet is a textile floor covering that is distinguished from the
more general term "rug" by being fixed to the floor surface and
extending wall to wall.
• The first carpets of note were woven by nomads. The thick
carpets were easy to transport and were placed over the sand
floor of tent dwellings. Early looms were similarly easy to
transport.
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The first carpet factory in the U.S. was built by William Sprague
in Philadelphia in 1791. His looms, based on English inventions,
could make 27-inch (69-cm) runners that could be sewn
together to make larger carpets. By 1800, 6-8 yards (7-9 m) of
carpet could be made in a day.
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Erastus Bigelow built a mill in 1825 in Clinton, Massachusetts, and
invented the power loom in 1839, which doubled carpet production. He
also invented the first broadloom in 1877. Power looms improved over
the years; soon one loom could make 75 yards (82 m) of high quality
carpet a day.
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Carpet production changed dramatically at the beginning of the 20th
century, beginning inauspiciously with a burst of tufted bedspread
production in Dalton, Georgia, led by young entrepreneur Catherine
Evans Whitener. Tufting is the process of punching yarn into a ground
fabric to create many uncut loops at a very fast pace. Tufted bedspread factories dominated the Dalton area by World War II, and they
soon began producing tufted rugs as well.
• Today, carpet makes up 72% of all flooring, with tufted carpet
being 91.5% of production, and the city of Dalton is responsible
for over 70% of the world's production of carpet.
• Carpet consists of dyed pile yarns; a primary backing in which
the yarns are sewn; a secondary backing that adds strength to
the carpet; adhesive that binds the primary and secondary
backings; and, in most cases, a cushion laid underneath the
carpet to give it a softer, more luxurious feel.
• Ninety-seven percent of pile yarns today are made up of
synthetic polymers; the rest of the yarns are wool and comprise
the more expensive, woven carpet. Synthetics are plastics such
as nylon (which is in 66% of all carpet), acrylics (15%),
polyester (less than 15%), and polypropylene (less than 5%).
These pile yarns are dyed using a variety of organic chemical
compounds, or occasionally, organometallic complexes.
• Most states require a flammability test. A prepared 9 × 9 inch
(23 × 23 cm) specimen is placed on a steel plate that has a
hole 8 inches (20 cm) in diameter in its middle. A methenamine
tablet is ignited in the center. If the charred portion in seven out
of eight trials does not reach to the circumference of the hole,
the carpet passes. Another important test determines the
carpet's resistance to wear. A specimen of carpet is placed in a
drum and beaten with a steel ball that has rubber studs on it for
20,000 to 50,000 revolutions. The carpet should look fairly new
after this test. To test how the carpet's color stands up to
sunlight, a standard light source that simulates sunlight is
directed at a specimen, which is then rated according to the
number of units of exposure required to produce visible loss of
color.
Fiber Types and Characteristics
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Nylon
Fiber-forming substance of any long-chain, synthetic polyamide having recurring amide
groups as an integral part of the polymer chain.
First used in 1959 in carpet.
Used in residential and commercial applications.
Produced as a solution-dyed fiber or white yarn to-be-dyed.
Accounts for 65% of all face fibers in carpet.
Durable, resilient, abrasion-resistant.
Versatile in coloration possibilities.
Favorably priced.
Must be treated to be stain and soil resistant
Polyester
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Made from terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol.
Offered primarily as a staple product, although some BCF in being
produced.
‘staple’ fibers are short, 6” - 7” long fibers that are spun together to
make a long continuous fiber.
‘BCF’, continuous filament, is a continuous filament manufactured as
one very long string. these are twisted and heat set to make yarn.
Used in residential and commercial applications.
100% of Mohawk's Staple Polyester is PET Polyester, manufactured
from recycled plastic bottles.
Color clarity Colorfastness Resistant to water-soluble stains.
Noted for luxurious "hand
Polypropylene
(Olefin)
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Fiber-forming substance of any long-chain synthetic polymer composed
of at least 85%, by weight, of ethylene, propylene, or other olefin units.
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Offered primarily as BCF (bulked continuous filament) with some staple
product available.
Primarily sold as solution-dyed or pre-dyed fiber.
Can be engineered for outdoor applications.
Resists fading. Inherently stain resistant.
Limited color selection.
Generates low levels of static electricity.
Chemical, moisture, and stain resistant.
Favorably priced
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These synthetic materials come from...
One barrel of oil produces:
Wool comes from ...
Wool
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Natural fiber.
Offered as staple yarn.
Luxurious "hand"
Durable Inherent resilient property
Scaly character of fiber scatters light and reduces visible soil.
Largely self-extinguishing when burned.
Will char rather than melt and drip
Generally expensive
Sheet carpet installation:
direct glue down: capet is glued directly to
the sub-floor material.
Carpet pads
• foam cushions
• rubber cushions:
– waffled, flat
• fiber cushions:
– natural fibers: felt, jute (like rope fibers)
– synthetic fibers: nylon, polyester, acrylics, polypropylene
Carpet tack strips:
typically used in residential installations
Carpet manufacturing:
methods, materials, locations
Carpet looms and methods of manufacturing
carpet
Tufted carpet
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Tufted carpet is produced on machines similar to sewing machines.
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The yarn is caught by loopers and held in place for loop-pile carpet or
cut by blades for cut-pile carpet.
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Next, a secondary backing, usually polypropylene, is laminated with
latex to the carpet.
Several hundred needles stitch hundreds of rows of pile yarn tufts
through a backing fabric called the primary backing.
Woven carpet
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Woven carpet is created on looms that take face and backing yarns
and simultaneously weave them into a complete product.
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A latex back coating is usually applied for stability and a separate
carpet cushion is usually used, although other attached cushions are
available for various performance needs.
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Principal variations of woven carpet include velvet, Wilton, and
Axminster.
Mohawk is a large manufacturer of carpet.
Their website offers clear explanations of
different types of carpet.
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www.mohawk-flooring.com/
Tandus is a large carpet manufacturing company.
Tandus.com