How long will my carpet last...?

Talk about a million dollar question! The best way to answer this question at a high level is to compare carpet to a set of new tires…. And to do that, we will use some hypotheticals on the basis of us being flooring experts, not tire experts.

After a quick internet search, I found tire mileage ratings for a basic pick-up truck for very “little” money with no mileage rating at all -  up to 50,000, 55,000, 70,000, and 80,000 miles. The higher the rating, the more money. Makes sense, right? Can we all agree that if you buy the 80,000 mile tires and they don’t “last” you 75,000 miles, that you most likely WILL NOT get your money back? GREAT! I’m glad we agree on that. The tricky part about tires is that relatively speaking, they all look and feel the exact same. (Carpet can be that way also….another post will cover that) 

Ultimately, when it comes to carpet or tires, we have a general idea of what kind of mileage we want to get out of it. For tires, we don’t want to slide off the road in the snow or a rainstorm. For carpet, we don’t want it to look like a black-top steamroller lives in our home. So the answer to that million dollar question, is……..it depends!
Now, the person writing this post sold carpet for two of the world's largest carpet manufacturers for the better part of ten years, has been behind the curtain inside the manufacturing facilities, and has had several conversations with carpet designers, product managers, and manufacturing professionals. We could seriously get into the weeds here! So, in lieu of confusing and boring you to death, I’ve made a checklist. You’re welcome!