What is life expectancy of carpet? How is it defined, what does it mean, is there a formula, and is there a guide that tells you exactly what defines this term exactly? Is the question ever answered “How long should a carpet last? Is life expectancy appearance retention, wear or what? What part does price play? Why was the decision to use a specific product made and what was it based on? And finally, what are or were the expectations of the end user? Is the insurance Gray Guide a viable gauge to measure the life of a carpet? Lots of questions to be considered on this subject, for sure. The answers are hard to come by, for what might be considered a simple subject.
First we have to determine the factors that govern the life of a carpet and they are basic. Color, pattern, density, fiber, construction, backing system, installation, maintenance, use and abuse. Next we have to define appearance retention, which relates to such factors as matting and crushing, fading and soiling – basically “Ugly Out.” Wear, defined by warranties for it, relates directly to abrasion and loss of pile fiber. Understanding how to make carpet perform and sustain an expected life is an important issue. In fact, carpet is first supposed to look aesthetically pleasing – enhance the design and style of the environment by beautifying it – and deliver comfort, style and performance of the expected life. Again, the expected life factor is always in play.
The carpet construction selected for contract use in offices or other commercial interiors must be properly specified for the expected traffic use. A color and design should be selected that will minimize the visual rate of change and preclude style aging. Contract carpet must be chosen with an awareness of off street soiling and walk off considerations, as well as overall maintenance, installation and removal costs. The aesthetic considerations of a loop pile, cut pile, and/or cut-uncut carpet style affect the use life and maintenance program. In addition, the shorter replacement cycle that drives today’s office interior design market has expanded the selection of textile floorcoverings to include many different types of carpets. A point of consideration however is that some carpet today has been down far longer than it would have been because of the tragic events of 9-11. Replacement cycles have been grossly distorted.
Carpet, when properly maintained, usually retains its “new” appearance for most of the five to ten year style cycle preferred by architects, designers, specifiers and end users.
To put life expectancy into perspective consider a specific product in a specific environment and then determine how long it should last relative to construction and quality of the product. The broadloom carpet we’ll use for this is a 28 ounce, 1/10 gauge, ll.0 stitch rate, (110 tufts per square inch), .187 pile height, 6,503 density, solution dyed, level loop nylon with a woven polypropylene primary and secondary backing, glued directly to a concrete substrate in an office environment consisting of work stations occupied by 400 employees. This is no special product and in fact is not a product that would be considered an extra heavy commercial category performer, which it should be for the area it was purchased for use in. Therefore one could not expect this product to last, and perform satisfactorily for longer than three to five years and if it lasted longer than five years they should count their blessings for getting that out of the product. Even though one may interpret the specs to be acceptable, the reps handling the product know that this carpet is not going to last longer than 3 to 5 years in this office environment. It may be on the floor longer than that but it is not designed, engineered or manufactured to deliver a long life, in fact, its useful life is limited. They wouldn’t sell it for use here unless there were cost considerations, or unless it was tenant space that was going to be replaced at the end of a lease that was five years or less. The product that should be used here is a high performance carpet tile.
Is life expectancy then appearance retention, wear or what? Back in the later 1980’s, DuPont estimated that pile wear in a typical nylon carpet (typical for the estimate at the time was 24 ounces per square yard pile fiber) at less than 1% per five million traffics. Put into perspective, almost 7,000 people would have to enter or leave a facility through the same doorway each day to generate five million traffics in one year. DuPont concluded that the life of a properly constructed nylon carpet is primarily a function of its surface appearance, not pile wear which is rarely a factor in determining effective life. This goes back to our old saying that nylon does not wear out, but it can and will ugly out.
Density is the key to performance and life expectancy. The denser the construction of a carpet the better performance it will deliver and the longer life it should serve. Density can be associated with the face of the carpet but to truly enhance performance and life, the backing must play a major role. Carpet tile for example is probably one of the best examples of high performance, long lasting product. One only need look at most airports to see that carpet tile delivers the best of both performance and life expectancy. The Atlanta Airport, for example, the busiest airport in the world, has 3 foot square, nylon faced, polyurethane cushion backed carpet tiles. The life expectancy of this product when purchased was anticipated to be 12 years. That’s a lot to ask of a carpet in one of the highest traffic load situations known to man but the product is indeed performing – this despite a fairly light face weight and its light blue color. Not much else would have worked as well or lasted as long. The question, “what is life expectancy?” is clearly answered in this application. The carpet was chosen to last a certain length of time and did, even though it does suffer from diminishing appearance. Certainly, this has not happened without good maintenance and replacement of many of the tiles from time to time for various reasons, such as damage, soiling and staining. A specific period of time was chosen for the carpet to last.
In a hospitality situation, for example, the carpet may be on a pre-determined life cycle of 3 to 5 years to keep the property looking fresh and to stay in step with the ever present competition in this market segment.
If one consciously has a time frame in mind for the life of a carpet then a product that will deliver for that period of time should be chosen. Price certainly will have a part to play here. A less expensive product will normally not deliver high performance and long life in a heavy load environment. A less expensive product in a high performance environment will not deliver good performance or yield a long life. It may stay on the floor for a long period of time but it may not look good nor have sufficient life left to keep going. This equates to a short life for the carpet but a high expectancy. The carpet will lose the race before it’s over. A more expensive product, with higher density construction and backing system, will deliver a longer life when subjected to a heavy traffic load. The characteristics that govern the performance and life of each category of product are influenced by the price. The more the carpet costs the more features and benefits it will inherently possess to last longer and look good doing it. The formula then for life expectancy would be, how much is the end user willing to pay, how long does the end user expect the carpet to last and what has to be built into it to make that happen – we’ve already mentioned those factors. If nothing is considered except a particular carpet chosen for its look, color and price then it will only last as long as it can under the circumstances of use. If an argument ensues as to a property owner insisting the carpet used in tenant space still has value and the owner sues for that value then one only need look at the product characteristics and specifications. Probably most important and simplest would be to ask the manufacturers rep if this product would or should be sold into an environment of the kind it was installed in. Since the commercial carpet rep generally knows his product fairly well, he or she will know if a particular product is appropriate for use in the environment in which it was installed. They’d also know if it should be expected to last for a few years or many years. Keep in mind that commercial carpet, depending on how and where it is used, has a limited life expectancy. Just like a truck will only last so long under particular use applications, so too will a carpet. The exception is you can change a lot of parts in a truck to make it last longer, you can’t change any parts in a carpet.
There are several laboratory tests that will help determine the life of a carpet. Some of the tests would be relative to physical aspects of the product and some relative to appearance. The Phillips roll chair test, Taber abrasion test, Hexapod tests and the “Human Walking Test” would assist in evaluating the product for physical wear and appearance retention to help gauge life expectancy. Accelerated soiling, staining, cleaning and colorfastness tests would assist in determining the appearance retention of a carpet. There is also an actual appearance retention test, Appearance Change Reference Scales CRI -3 or 4, for commercial carpet that would be pertinent to the life of a carpet and how good it looks after a period of time.
The answer to the original question then is that life expectancy can be measured and determined, to an extent, by subjecting a carpet to specific scientific testing. It can also be determined by experience which would be governed by how well a particular product would be expected to last in a particular environment by the people who actually sell commercial carpet and understand it. Just because someone thinks a carpet should have lasted a particular period of time in a particular space doesn’t mean that it will, or that it should have.
And finally, when you’re looking at true guidelines for life expectancy of floor coverings, the insurance Gray Guide says it is judged and based on price, and estimates depreciation according to the carpet’s number of years on the floor. The maximum wear or life of any carpet or rug on the market, regardless of price, is set at a maximum of 10 years. The depreciation chart is weighted more heavily in the first years of life, after three years the carpet has lost 50% of its value. In the next seven years the carpet or rug loses the next 50% of its value. Guidelines such as this govern the insurance industry and replacement market value of carpets and rugs, just like they do the cars we drive. Whether we drive them or not, they depreciate according to insurance coverage unless they have antique value and carpet floor covering never achieves that status. There are scientifically based life cycle initiatives being explored by the Carpet and Rug Institute but there is nothing in place yet. Whether these initiatives will help determine how long a product will last based on whatever scientific factors are used, remains to be seen.
Author – Lewis G. Migliore – The Commercial Flooring Report
LGM and Associates – The Floorcovering Experts