Hard floors are fantastic in the heat of summer when they keep your home cool, but once the temperatures and sunlight dip during the winter, the warmth and comfort of a carpet is hard to beat. Although they make a room, psychologically at least, seem warmer, is there a case for carpet as an energy-efficiency measure? Will it actually make your home warmer or more energy efficient as well as making it feel cosier?
Why Is Carpet Warm?
Well-fitted and well-made carpets can make a clear contribution to retaining heat in a room, which is one of the many ways they can contribute to energy efficiency at home. It is estimated that around 10% of a room’s heat that would be lost through a smooth floor covering can be retained by a carpet. It might not sound like much, but small margins like this can make all the difference when you are trying to reduce heating bills and retain as much warmth as possible in your home.
In particular, the difference in heat retention offered by carpeting can be crucial during transition seasons and enable people to turn on their heating system later and switch it off earlier than those with hard floors. It has been estimated that up to a month’s worth of heating costs can be saved in homes with carpet, which accounts for a 4 to 6% saving on overall heating bills. At a time of ever-rising energy prices, even small savings like this can soon add up.
Keeping The Heat In
Good-quality carpets have low heat conduction, making them fantastic natural insulators. Carpet also works as a simple heat barrier, which is particularly useful if your subfloor is a cold concrete slab or is built over a draughty crawl space.
Traditional hard flooring, particularly wooden floorboards, not only miss out on the blanket-like insulating properties of carpet, but are more prone to gapping and draughts, providing numerous opportunities for heat to leave your room. Sealing the gaps between boards and fitting beading is a time-consuming and tiresome job for even the most avid DIY enthusiast.
Floating timber floors can help to improve draught-proofing while keeping that natural wood look, but they don’t offer the cushioning and comfort of carpet underfoot.
Carpet And Heating Systems
Low-tog carpets can be used with energy-efficient under-floor heating, combining the benefits of an ambient heating system that requires lower temperatures to work with the addition of a heat retaining layer and draught barrier.
So what are you waiting for? If you’ve been yearning to cover your cold, hard floor with cosy, luxurious carpet, Complete Carpet Co in Melbourne has a fantastic choice of cheap carpet and flooring that you can take away today. Bring your room plans along when you shop in either our Bayswater of Blackburn store, and we can arrange installation by our experienced team of carpet installers on the spot.
