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If you’ve ever visited a flooring store’s showroom, you’ve most likely seen that some offer both residential and commercial carpet options to choose from.
Telling the difference between commercial grade carpet and residential carpeting is pretty easy. Just in case you don’t know the differences, we decided to break it down for you.
Residential Carpet vs. Commercial Carpet
The differences between commercial carpeting and residential grade carpet can be broken down into five factors:
- Aesthetics
- Comfort
- Durability
- Cleaning and Maintenance
- Expectation
Aesthetics
Compared to residential carpets, the range of carpet color and style options for commercial carpeting is quite lacking.
Next time you go to a commercial business, take a look at the carpeting. If it’s a busy commercial space, you’ll see darker colored patterns as a popular flooring of choice. These patterns are more forgiving when it comes to high-foot traffic and hides stains and blemishes well.
Lighter-colored commercial carpet options show up in businesses with little foot traffic. In recent years, businesses are trying to mimic residential settings, being seen commonly in offices. Semi-solid textured selections have become quite popular in office settings.
Comfort
Comfort is different from one carpeting to the other, but the differences between residential and commercial are day and night.
Some residential carpeting, like plush carpet, sports a soft velvet and sophisticated look and feel that commercial grade carpeting can’t. Since both types of carpet undergo different construction processes, the luxurious underfoot feel has been applied to residential carpets.
Residential carpets also have premium carpet cushion placed underneath them to extend the lifespan of the product as well as enhance comfort. Commercial grade carpet is starting to follow suit, but it still has a long way to go.
Durability
Residential carpeting may have a better feel than it’s competitor, but we have to give durability to commercial carpeting.
Carpet made for business buildings is designed to stand up against heavy foot traffic on a day to day basis. A residential carpet would wear out in no time in a business setting. Commercial carpeting has a shorter pile height, meaning it will outlast any carpeting made up of longer fibers.
Cleaning and Maintenance
No matter what, all types of carpeting requires a frequent vacuuming and an occasional professional cleaning. This is truer for commercial grade carpeting because of how much traffic it experiences daily.
If you know anything about what you track in on your shoes into your house, multiply those two shoes by thousands more on the daily. Business carpets get much dirtier than any other carpeting, hence why it needs to be cleaned frequently.
For residential carpeting, a professional carpet cleaning is recommended every 12-18 months. For commercial carpeting, a deep cleaning should be scheduled every 4-6 months.
Expectation
Whenever you buy new carpeting, you expect great things out of it.
All commercial carpeting needs to stay clean and beautiful to retain a professional business atmosphere. Residential carpeting may not last as long, but it still needs routine TLC to maintain it’s look and feel.
Whatever the case, the carpeting you choose for your home or business should be one that you love. Take care of your investment and it will last for years to come.
