Hi Folks,

The carpet in the living room is shot. After a not very pleasant
surprise with brand name carpet tiles in another room I want ask he
Which brand/series is good as a typical high-pile living room carpet?
We'd be looking at beige or gray, should be somewhat stain-proof because
we will have guide dog puppies at times and then accidents can happen.

I've read a lot on the web but it's inconclusive. Some people say "Don't
ever buy at big box stores", others say it's ok. Supporting local
dealers is good, too, but recently I have seen a house that was
completely re-done by a local business and I was not at all enthused.
They paid a lot of money, the install job was good, but the carpet
really looks sub-par. So, any suggestions?

While at it, I had asked in another NG and there the prevailing opinion
was that for exterior paint Sherwin-Williams Duration could be the best.
On the web some experienced contractors said it's very thick and not
easy at all to apply with a roller. One paint we no longer prefer is
Benjamin Moore. We have a lot of direct sunlight and it discolored in
some deck railing areas after only two years, essentially turned white.
The house paint (Kelly Moore) which we applied around 14 years ago also
starts turning white now, but in smaller spots and it's been on there
for well over a decade. One local paint store carries Pittsburgh
Sunproof. Can anyone share hints or experience?

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Joerg wrote:
Hi Folks,

The carpet in the living room is shot. After a not very pleasant
surprise with brand name carpet tiles in another room I want ask he
Which brand/series is good as a typical high-pile living room carpet?
We'd be looking at beige or gray, should be somewhat stain-proof
because we will have guide dog puppies at times and then accidents
can happen.

Forget carpet - install laminate.
* I will not stain, smell bad, or wear. You can do your own living room
easily in a week-end
* It is a DIY project
* Laminate can be had for as little as $0.49/sq ft
* The dog's nails won't hurt it
* A laminate floor can be accessorized by throw rugs and these rugs can be
easily changed to meet the whims of re-decorating.

The cheapest I've found is at Lumber Liquidators or Floor & Decor Outlets.
If you need more informtion, just ask here.

On Mar 30, 10:06*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
Joerg wrote:
Hi Folks,

The carpet in the living room is shot. After a not very pleasant
surprise with brand name carpet tiles in another room I want ask he
Which brand/series is good as a typical high-pile living room carpet?
We'd be looking at beige or gray, should be somewhat stain-proof
because we will have guide dog puppies at times and then accidents
can happen.

Forget carpet - install laminate.
* I will not stain, smell bad, or wear. You can do your own living room
easily in a week-end
* It is a DIY project
* Laminate can be had for as little as $0.49/sq ft
* The dog's nails won't hurt it
* A laminate floor can be accessorized by throw rugs and these rugs can be
easily changed to meet the whims of re-decorating.

The cheapest I've found is at Lumber Liquidators or Floor & Decor Outlets..
If you need more informtion, just ask here.

Or linoleum. I got a remnant for a bedroom, its highly durable
unaffected by water, dogs nails etc, and still looks as good as the
day it was installed.

I am surprised at how durable it is.

AVOID THROW RUGS, They are a trip fall hazard espically for the
elderly!

HeyBub wrote:
Joerg wrote:
Hi Folks,

The carpet in the living room is shot. After a not very pleasant
surprise with brand name carpet tiles in another room I want ask he
Which brand/series is good as a typical high-pile living room carpet?
We'd be looking at beige or gray, should be somewhat stain-proof
because we will have guide dog puppies at times and then accidents
can happen.

Forget carpet - install laminate.
* I will not stain, smell bad, or wear. You can do your own living room
easily in a week-end
* It is a DIY project
* Laminate can be had for as little as $0.49/sq ft
* The dog's nails won't hurt it
* A laminate floor can be accessorized by throw rugs and these rugs can be
easily changed to meet the whims of re-decorating.

The cheapest I've found is at Lumber Liquidators or Floor & Decor Outlets.
If you need more informtion, just ask here.


We thought about it. But it is not healthy at all for dogs when they get
older. It is hard on the hips because their hindlegs slide around on it.
And hips the weak point in most larger dogs.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Joerg:

In a nutshell:

Get a solution dyed nylon carpet.
If you want the softest feel under your feet, and you can afford the additional cost, buy a Saxony. If you're looking for long term durability, buy a level loop carpet.

Why Nylon?
Carpeting is made of three synthetic fibers (Olefin, Polyester and Nylon) one natural fiber (Wool). The strongest of all these fibers is nylon, and so nylon makes for the longest wearing carpets. Over 80 percent of all the commercial carpet made in North America is level loop carpet made from nylon fiber. But, most of that commercial level loop carpet is not solution dyed. Get the solution dyed stuff, and most of the rest of this post will explain why.

Why solution dyed?
In conventionally dyed carpet, the fiber itself is run through a liquid dye, and so the dye molecules bind to the exterior of the carpet fibers. In solution dyed carpets, the carpet fiber get it's colour from tiny solid coloured particles (called "pigments") which are added to the liquid plastic before it's drawn into a fiber. So, solution dyed carpet fiber gets it's colour from tiny coloured particles that are suspended inside the fiber very much like the raisins in raisin bread.
Nylon is a polyamide and amide groups are polar. Water molecules are also polar. Water based dyes dissolve in water because they are attracted to polar water molecules, and they're also attracted to the amide groups on the surface of nylon carpet fiber. In fact, whenever a carpet gets stained, it's usually a water based food stain and it stains the carpet because the staining molecules are sticking to the polar sites on the surface of the carpet fiber that aren't occupied by dye molecules.
So, after solution dyed nylon carpet fiber is made, it is dyed a second time with a CLEAR water based dye so that those clear molecules occupy all those polar sites on the surface of the nylon, thereby making the carpet much more stain resistant by denying the staining molecules a place where they'd stick well to the surface of the carpet fiber. But, through wear, some of those clear dye molecules will be worn off as the carpet gets older, and so the carpet will become more prone to staining in the traffic areas as it gets worn out. Exactly the same thing happens to conventionally dyed nylon carpets as they get older.

But, the most important thing to remember here is that because the colour of solution dyed nylon comes from the coloured pigments INSIDE the nylon carpet fibers, you can use bleach straight out of the jug to remove otherwise impossible stains on that carpet WITHOUT harming the carpet. That's because the bleach never actually comes into contact with the pigments that give the carpet fiber it's colour because they're encased in nylon plastic. Bleaching a stain out of a solution dyed nylon carpet will probably destroy all the clear dye molecules on the surface of the fiber contacted by the bleach, making the carpet susceptible to staining in the bleached area, but you can also use bleach a second, third, fourth and N'th time to remove stains from those same areas without affecting the colour of the carpet in those areas. That is, by using bleach to remove a stain on a solution dyed nylon carpet, you remove both the stain and the stain resistance in the area contacted by bleach, but you can keep removing stains from the carpet indefinitely using bleach. And you'll never harm the carpet with bleach. So, the prudent thing to do is to wipe up liquid spills ASAP, try to remove stains without using bleach, and use the bleach when all else fails. That will ensure you have the best looking, most stain resistant carpet for the longest possible time.

And, I have no doubt that it would have occured to you by now that you can check to see that everything I'm saying is true by dropping in to any carpet store and buying one of those $2 door mat size samples of discontinued carpet and torturing it with bleach. Just make sure that the carpet you buy is SOLUTION dyed nylon. And, if you can use bleach on the carpet without harming it, you can also use bleach on any pet accidents to kill any germs left behind in the carpet at those locations. That way, you can keep your solution dyed nylon carpet smelling fresh as an Irish meadow in springtime.

Olefin fiber CANNOT by dyed by conventional means, and so ALL 100% Olefin carpets are solution dyed. Chemically, Olefin fiber is very similar to polypropylene, which is one of the most water resistant plastics there is, so Olefin carpets are naturally resistant to water based food stains. Sounds great so far. The problem with Olefin is that it's a weaker plastic than polyester or nylon, and so Olefin carpets (which is what the big box stores mostly sell) wear out faster than nylon or polyester carpets. The big box stores sell Olefin carpets because Olefin carpets are generally less expensive per square yard than polyester or nylon and people shopping for carpet at a home center are mostly looking at price. But, before I started buying solution dyed nylon carpets for my apartments, I was buying 100% Olefin carpets for them. The only reason I switched was because I wasn't happy with how long the Olefin carpets were lasting before they started showing signs of deterioration.

If you want a carpet that's going to be soft on your feet and feel luxurious, you want a "cut pile" carpet, which means that that the tops of the tufts have been cut off so that each carpet fiber in each tuft can move independantly of it's neighbors. Such a carpet is called a "Plush" carpet. Since the individual carpet fibers can move independantly of each other in a plush carpet, when you vaccum a plush carpet, the rotating brush will leave the carpet fibers leaning one way or the other depending on which way the brush was going when it passed over the carpet fibers. Some people like that, some people don't. If you don't like that, don't buy a plush carpet.

A saxony carpet is very similar to a plush carpet except that the yarns are more tightly twisted, and the manufacturer packs more of those tightly twisted yarns into each square inch of carpet to make a Saxony, so you get more carpet fiber with a Saxony than with a Plush. So Saxonies are more expensive cuz they use more carpet fiber so they cost more to make.

If you want the carpet to last the longest, or you're concerned about someone in a wheel chair being able to roll over the carpet easily, get a level loop carpet. Most people would consider a Berber to be a kind of level loop carpet. There's a natural resilience to a loop that results in level loop carpet standing up better to high traffic than cut pile carpets. To my knowledge, ALL commercial carpet is level loop carpet cuz commercial carpet has to be long lasting.

And, the best way to get the longest life out of a carpet is to vaccuum it regularily with a good quality vaccuum cleaner. There's a popular misconception that shampooing a carpet will get it cleaner than vaccuuming, but that's not true. That's because as soon as you get the carpet fiber wet, you create something called "surface tension" on the surface of the carpet fibers that keeps dirt stuck to the carpet fibers. Next time you're at the beach, try cleaning sand off of wet feet and dry feet and see which one works better. Really, a vaccuum cleaner is meant for cleaning SOLID soils out of carpets, and a carpet shampoo'er is meant for cleaning liquids and dried up liquid spills out of carpets. They're different tools meant for different jobs. If you intend to shampoo your carpet, you'd do well to vaccuum it thoroughly first to remove the solid soils, and then shampoo to remove the dried up liquid spills. Vaccuuming after you shampoo is a waste of time.

There, now you know more about solution dyed nylon carpet than most people. And, most people would buy solution dyed nylon carpet if they knew what they were paying extra for. They don't, so often they go to big box stores to buy Olefin carpet at half the price. And, truth be told, if I couldn't buy solution dyed nylon carpet from my local carpet store, I'd buy Olefin carpet from a home center and just replace it more often. (I install my own carpets.)

Now, about paint...

No paint company except Glidden (which is a subsidiary of ICI Ltd. of Britain) actually makes it's own paint from scratch. Basically, they all buy all of the stuff they use to make their paints from chemical companies that specialize in the various components of latex paints, like acrylic paint binders, organic and inorganic pigments and the myriad of chemical additives that go into modern latex paints. Each of the chemical companies (many that you've probably never heard of) is continuously trying to sell their latest and greatest product to every paint company to make paint with.

So, how good the paint each paint company makes is not indicitive of the limitations of the engineers and chemists working for that company, it's entirely a management decision on how good a paint to make. That's because every chemical company (like Dow or Du Pont) are continuously taking the management of the paint companies out to lunch to tell them about their latest and greatest acrylic binder resin or their latest and greatest rheology modifier or green or red or yellow pigment. The management of those paint companies respond just as you or I would. They won't buy the latest and greatest of anything at the newest and highest price unless they're convinced that the resulting increase in cost is going to have an comensurate improvement in the performance of their paint, and that their customers are going to appreciate the difference in performance and be willing to pay the incremental cost of making that change. So, this is precisely why when it comes to paint, you get what you pay for. The trick is to buy the most expensive paint from the place that sells it the cheapest.

Also, House Brand paints like Sears Weather Beater, Ace Hardware's House Beautiful brand, Lowe's American Tradition, Home Depot's Behr paint all consistantly score well in Consumer Reports tests, and there's a good reason for that too:

When a chain of hardware stores decides they want to start selling their own house brand of paint, they will FIRST decide what that paint should sell for. That's because if you're willing to buy the latest and greatest offering of each chemical company, you can make the world's best latex paint for $200 per gallon, but how many people are going to buy it? So, a hardware store chain will interview it's customers and compare the sales figures of the paints that it had been selling before to get an idea of where the price range of their paint should be to both perform well and sell well.

So, when that same chain of hardware stores approaches a half dozen paint companies and asks for a quote to supply them with 15,000 gallons per month (say) that will be distributed to their 100 stores, THE STORE TELLS THE PAINT COMPANY WHAT THE PAINT WILL SELL FOR. So, after factoring in the store's usual mark-up, the store is effectively telling the paint company what the paint it buys will cost.

So, each of those paint companies sharpen their pencils and figure out what the best package of binder resins, pigments and additives they can put together for that price range from flat to high gloss interior and exterior latex paints. But, because the price has already be established, THE VOLUME DISCOUNT THE STORE WOULD NORMALLY GET ENDS UP GOING TO THE CUSTOMER in the form of a better binder resin, or a better additives package than you'd expect to find in paint selling for that price. THIS is why house brand paints typically get Best Buy ratings on Consumer Reports tests than cans with the well recognized paint company names on them. It's because the price of the paint is established first, and so the store doesn't get a reduced price because of it's volume discount. Instead, they get a better paint for the price they agreed to pay.

But, a Consumer Reports Best Buy rating doesn't mean that Home Depot's Behr paint is better than Sherwin Williams best paint. You're always going to get the best paint by buying any paint company's top-of-the-line paint. But, you're always going to get better value for your paint dollar by buying a house brand paint from a chain store, and the more stores in the chain, the more of a volume discount the guy with the sharp pencil has available to him to put together a better paint. I don't think much of Behr paint either, but if I only had 18 dollars in my pocket to buy a gallon of paint, I'd pick Behr too cuz it's the best paint you can buy for under $20 per gallon.

That whitening you've been noticing on the exterior paints on your house may be something called "chaulking". Chaulking occurs when UV light from the Sun breaks down the paint's plastic binder resins, causing that plastic to deteriorate and turn into a powder. Rub your finger on those white areas and see if a white powder rubs off on your finger. If so, then it's chaulking, and you need a top quality paint with plenty of UV blockers in it to get the maximum lifespan out of the labour you put into painting your house.

And, if it were my house, I would paint with any company's top-of-the-line exterior latex paint in a dead flat gloss and an "earth tone" colour, and I'll explain why the next time I sit down at my computer with some time to kill. In fact, I think I posted that on this site before, so I'll see if that post is still in the archives.

nestork wrote:
Joerg:

In a nutshell:

get a solution dyed nylon carpet.
If you want the softest feel under your feet, and you can afford the
additional cost, buy a Saxony. If you're looking for long term
durability, buy a level loop carpet.


For a high-pile version I assume you mean something like the "French"
series in this link:

http://www.saxcarpet.com/textures.htm


Why Nylon?
Carpeting is made of three synthetic fibers (Olefin, Polyester and
Nylon) one natural fiber (Wool). The strongest of all these fibers is
nylon, and so nylon makes for the longest wearing carpets. Over 80
percent of all the commercial carpet made in North America is level loop
carpet made from nylon fiber. But, most of that commercial level loop
carpet is not solution dyed. Get the solution dyed stuff, and most of
the rest of this post will explain why.

Why solution dyed?
In conventionally dyed carpet, the fiber itself is run through a
liquid dye, and so the dye molecules bind to the exterior of the carpet
fibers. In solution dyed carpets, the carpet fiber get it's colour from
tiny solid coloured particles (called "pigments") which are added to the
liquid plastic before it's drawn into a fiber. So, solution dyed carpet
fiber gets it's colour from tiny coloured particles that are suspended
inside the fiber very much like the raisins in raisin bread.
Nylon is a polyamide and amide groups are polar. Water molecules
are also polar. Water based dyes dissolve in water because they are
attracted to polar water molecules, and they're also attracted to the
amide groups on the surface of nylon carpet fiber. In fact, whenever a
carpet gets stained, it's usually a water based food stain and it stains
the carpet because the staining molecules are sticking to the polar
sites on the surface of the carpet fiber that aren't occupied by dye
molecules.
So, after solution dyed nylon carpet fiber is made, it is dyed a
second time with a CLEAR water based dye so that those clear molecules
occupy all those polar sites on the surface of the nylon, thereby making
the carpet much more stain resistant by denying the staining molecules a
place where they'd stick well to the surface of the carpet fiber.


Aha, so in essence that kind of seals it all in.


... But,
through wear, some of those clear dye molecules will be worn off as the
carpet gets older, and so the carpet will become more prone to staining
in the traffic areas as it gets worn out. Exactly the same thing
happens to conventionally dyed nylon carpets as they get older.


One big challenge with dogs is when they get sick and throw up on a
mostly empty stomach, like early in the morning before breakfast. Then a
lot of bile comes out. The carpet we have now is amazing. Almost 20
years old but we can still get those stains out. However, it begins to
fray at the seam lines and also has some sunlight damage at the east
side sliding door. The occasional round circuit full-speed dog marathons
don't help with that. We can't find out where that carpet came from.

What is a royal pain with bile puke clean-up is that the installers used
this dreaded orange padding. If you clean too much the padding color
makes it up into the carpet. I will make it a condition at any carpet
dealer that only white or very light colored padding be used this time.


But, the most important thing to remember here is that because the
colour of solution dyed nylon comes from the coloured pigments INSIDE
the nylon carpet fibers, you can use bleach straight out of the jug to
remove otherwise impossible stains on that carpet WITHOUT harming the
carpet. That's because the bleach never actually comes into contact
with the pigments that give the carpet fiber it's colour because they're
encased in nylon plastic. Bleaching a stain out of a solution dyed
nylon carpet will probably destroy all the clear dye molecules on the
surface of the fiber contacted by the bleach, making the carpet
susceptible to staining in the bleached area, but you can also use
bleach a second, third, fourth and N'th time to remove stains from those
same areas without affecting the colour of the carpet in those areas.
That is, by using bleach to remove a stain on a solution dyed nylon
carpet, you remove both the stain and the stain resistance in the area
contacted by bleach, but you can keep removing stains from the carpet
indefinitely using bleach. And you'll never harm the carpet with
bleach. So, the prudent thing to do is to wipe up liquid spills ASAP,
try to remove stains without using bleach, and use the bleach when all
else fails. That will ensure you have the best looking, most stain
resistant carpet for the longest possible time.


I found that cleaning up mechanically and then sucking things out very
slowly with a wet/dry shop vac works pretty good. Just with its vacuum
hose end, so that there is max suction over just a couple of square
inches at a time. We try to use as little bleach as we can.


And, I have no doubt that it would have occured to you by now that you
can check to see that everything I'm saying is true by dropping in to
any carpet store and buying one of those $2 door mat size samples of
discontinued carpet and torturing it with bleach. Just make sure that
the carpet you buy is SOLUTION dyed nylon. And, if you can use bleach
on the carpet without harming it, you can also use bleach on any pet
accidents to kill any germs left behind in the carpet at those
locations. That way, you can keep your solution dyed nylon carpet
smelling fresh as an Irish meadow in springtime.

Olefin fiber CANNOT by dyed by conventional means, and so ALL 100%
Olefin carpets are solution dyed. Chemically, Olefin fiber is very
similar to polypropylene, which is one of the most water resistant
plastics there is, so Olefin carpets are naturally resistant to water
based food stains. Sounds great so far. The problem with Olefin is
that it's a weaker plastic than polyester or nylon, and so Olefin
carpets (which is what the big box stores mostly sell) wear out faster
than nylon or polyester carpets. The big box stores sell Olefin carpets
because Olefin carpets are generally less expensive per square yard than
polyester or nylon and people shopping for carpet at a home center are
mostly looking at price. But, before I started buying solution dyed
nylon carpets for my apartments, I was buying 100% Olefin carpets for
them. The only reason I switched was because I wasn't happy with how
long the Olefin carpets were lasting before they started showing signs
of deterioration.


Thanks, I didn't know that the big box stores have mostly olefin.


If you want a carpet that's going to be soft on your feet and feel
luxurious, you want a "cut pile" carpet, which means that that the tops
of the tufts have been cut off so that each carpet fiber in each tuft
can move independantly of it's neighbors. Such a carpet is called a
"Plush" carpet. Since the individual carpet fibers can move
independantly of each other in a plush carpet, when you vaccum a plush
carpet, the rotating brush will leave the carpet fibers leaning one way
or the other depending on which way the brush was going when it passed
over the carpet fibers. Some people like that, some people don't. If
you don't like that, don't buy a plush carpet.


We don't care so much about that part. It doesn't necessarily have to be
plush, it's just that that is the kind we have in there now.


A saxony carpet is very similar to a plush carpet except that the
yarns are more tightly twisted, and the manufacturer packs more of those
tightly twisted yarns into each square inch of carpet to make a Saxony,
so you get more carpet fiber with a Saxony than with a Plush. So
Saxonies are more expensive cuz they use more carpet fiber so they cost
more to make.


That's the problem with the local store carpet friends had installed. It
has far too few yarns per square inch, it looks too "thin".


If you want the carpet to last the longest, or you're concerned
about someone in a wheel chair being able to roll over the carpet
easily, get a level loop carpet. Most people would consider a Berber to
be a kind of level loop carpet. There's a natural resilience to a loop
that results in level loop carpet standing up better to high traffic
than cut pile carpets. To my knowledge, ALL commercial carpet is level
loop carpet cuz commercial carpet has to be long lasting.


That's what I have in my office. Carpet tile, laid it myself and it
holds up to office chair wheels quite well.


And, the best way to get the longest life out of a carpet is to
vaccuum it regularily with a good quality vaccuum cleaner. There's a
popular misconception that shampooing a carpet will get it cleaner than
vaccuuming, but that's not true. That's because as soon as you get the
carpet fiber wet, you create something called "surface tension" on the
surface of the carpet fibers that keeps dirt stuck to the carpet fibers.
Next time you're at the beach, try cleaning sand off of wet feet and
dry feet and see which one works better. Really, a vaccuum cleaner is
meant for cleaning SOLID soils out of carpets, and a carpet shampoo'er
is meant for cleaning liquids and dried up liquid spills out of carpets.
They're different tools meant for different jobs. If you intend to
shampoo your carpet, you'd do well to vaccuum it thoroughly first to
remove the solid soils, and then shampoo to remove the dried up liquid
spills. Vaccuuming after you shampoo is a waste of time.


That's how we always do it, thorough vacuum first (with a Dyson), then
shampoo. But shampooing is only done 2x per year.


There, now you know more about solution dyed nylon carpet than most
people. And, most people would buy solution dyed nylon carpet if they
knew what they were paying extra for. They don't, so often they go to
big box stores to buy Olefin carpet at half the price. And, truth be
told, if I couldn't buy solution dyed nylon carpet from my local carpet
store, I'd buy Olefin carpet from a home center and just replace it more
often. (I install my own carpets.)


I could install carpet if it came in tiles, like in my office. In Europe
I also installed big rolls but they have better systems. A milky kind of
substance that the carpet is literally laid into. Can be fairly easily
picked up 10 years later for replacement. No tack strips and all that
nasty stuff. But, can't get that kind of foam backer carpet here in the
US. Regular American carpet on padding that must be stretched, well, my
back is not good enough anymore to do that. Lower disks, the usual.
We'll have it installed by the pros then.

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation, which I am going to
print out so it won't get lost and I can re-read.


Now, about paint...


:-)

Painting is the more immediate project because I already filled and
smoothed nail holes, cracks and whatnot. So now the walls look a bit
pecky and my wife wants it to be done soon.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

[quote='Joerg[_2_]
For a high-pile version I assume you mean something like the "French"
series in this link:
http://www.saxcarpet.com/textures.htm
[quote]
No. In a top quality Saxony, the tufts would be so close together that you'd never see gaps between them like you do in that series. Next time you're at a carpet store, ask a salesman to show you some good quality Saxonies, and you'll see what I mean.

No, it seals it all OUT. That's because both dye and polar stain molecules will bond the strongest to the polar amine sites along the surface of the nylon fiber. If you have clear dye molecules bonded to those sites, then the stain molecules won't find any vacant amine sites where they can bond to the nylon fiber, and that helps make the nylon stain resistant.

Almost certainly that old carpet is a 100% Olefin carpet. Olefin, being chemically similar to polypropylene is highly resistant to water and water based stains. So, if acidic puke doesn't leave a stain, it probably is Olefin.

You won't find a white or light coloured underpad. Instead, what you should ask for is a "pet" pad. Foam can be either open cell or closed cell depending on how much blowing gas is used when making the foam. In open cell foam, the bubbles that form in the foam due to the injection of blowing gas grow large enough to intersect, and that makes the foam permeable to both air and water. The problem with using open cell foam for underpad is that pet urine can penetrate through the carpet, through the underpad and into the plywood underlayment under the underpad. When that happens, you have to tear up the floor to eliminate the smell of dog or cat urine from the house.

You're better off paying a bit more and ordering a "pet" underpad. Pet underpads (also called "Premium Pads) will be made will less blowing gas so the pad is denser and the bubbles in it don't intersect. As a result, the pad will be impermeable to both air and water, and nothing can pass through it into the underlayment below, nor can anything come out of it. In your case, you definitely need a pet underpad.

EXACTLY. You can use a cheap Sears wet/dry vaccuum cleaner as a poor man's carpet shampoo'er to remove liquid spills and pet accidents from any carpet. In fact, if you phone around to any place listed under "Janitorial Equipment & Supplies" in your Yellow Pages phone directory, you'll be able to buy "spotting solutions" which are cleaners made to remove specific kinds of stains from draperies, upholstery and carpets. Here's a spotting kit sold to professional carpet cleaning contractors in the UK:



There will be anywhere from 8 to 20 different spotting cleaners in a spotting kit, and you can buy them individually, which is what the pros do when they run out of something.

By using that wet/dry vaccuum as your carpet shampoo'er, using the same cleaning chemical that the pros do, then if you can read Engrish and follow directions as well as any pro, you'll be able to remove stains from carpets as well as any pro. All you have to do is remember what was spilled on the carpet, and buy the appropriate cleaner for that kind of stain.

Don't know if they all do, but the Home Depot stores here in Winnipeg carry mostly Olefin carpets, and I suspect that's because Olefin is the least expensive fiber to make carpet from.

Get someone to show you a good quality Saxony. It won't look "thin" at all.
But, Saxonies are thick luxurious carpets meant for areas where you walk in bare or stocking feet, like bedrooms. Level loop carpets shine brightest where there's an awful lot of foot traffic. A living room is suitable for any kind of carpet.

If you vaccuum your carpet regularily, and remove spills with your wet/dry vaccuum cleaner, then there's no need to shampoo the carpet twice a year. Cleaning out spills and pet accidents with the wet/dry vaccuum cleaner should leave the carpet relatively clean, so I'd maybe shampoo it once every 3 or 4 years.

I don't recommend that DIY'ers install their own carpets. With most home improvements, the cost of materials is 1/4 to 1/3 of the cost of the labour to install them. With carpet, it's the other way around. The carpet costs 3 to 4 times more than the installation. So, there just isn't the same savings to be had by installing your own carpets as there is in installing your own laminate flooring or tiling or whatever.

Jeorg:

"Rocks are good at being opaque, but they're much better at being old."
That statement makes little sense to you now, but it will by the time you finish reading this post.

Modern latex paints consist of a SLURRY consisting of three different solids:

1.) clear, white or transluscent solid particles (called "extender pigments),
2.) coloured solid particles (called "coloured pigments"), and
3.) microscopically small clear hard spheres of plastic (called "binder resins")

all suspended in a mixture of two liquids:

4.) water, and
5.) a slow to evaporate water soluble solvent (called a "coalescing solvent").

When you spread that slurry onto a wall, the first thing that happens is that the water evaporates from the wet paint film. As that happens, those tiny hard plastic spheres find themselves surrounded by the coalescing solvent at an ever increasing concentration. That coalescing solvent gets absorbed into the hard plastic spheres making them soft and sticky. The same forces of capillary pressure and surface tension that cause tiny droplets to coalesce into rain drops in clowds then take over and cause each of those soft sticky spheres to stick to and pull on one another so the layer of soft sticky spheres on the wall COALESCES into a continuous film of soft sticky plastic with the coloured and extended pigments suspended inside it just like the raisins in raisin bread. It is while the plastic film is still soft and sticky that the adhesion of the plastic film to the substrate occurs.

Then, over the course of the next 24 to 48 hours, that coalescing solvent evaporates from the paint film, filling the air in the room with that "freshly painted" smell. As that coalescing solvent evaporates, the plastic in the film hardens back up to the same hardness as the plastic spheres were in the wet paint before it was spread on the wall.

Now, some of the properties of the paint will be determined by the plastic film that's sticking to the wall, and some of them will be determined by the solid particles suspended inside that plastic film.

Obviously, how well the paint sticks to the wall, how hard a film it forms and how resistant that film is to acids, alkalis, moisture and UV light from the Sun will all be determined by the kind of plastic film you have.

What gloss level the paint film dries to, and some of it's abiliity to hide the colour of the substrate will be determined by the clear, transluscent or white extender pigments in the paint film.

And, the colour the paint film dries to, the rest of it's ability to hide the colour of the substrate and the extend to which the paint colour fades from exposure to UV light from the Sun will be determined by the coloured pigments in the paint film.

Now, there are two kinds of coloured pigments used in latex house paints; organic and inorganic, and these can be further broken down into synthetic and natural, but for the purpose of this post, we'll accept that since synthetic and natural inorganic pigments are chemically identical, the properties of synthetic pigments are identical to natural pigments.

ORGANIC pigments are made in laboratories from chemicals. These are the "colour wheel" colours like red, blue, green, magenta and yellow. The advantage of organic pigments is that they disperse well so it doesn't take much of these kinds of pigments to change the colour of a paint substantially. The problem is that they don't have good hide and fade more from exposure to UV light from the Sun.

INORGANIC pigments are the modern day synthetic equivalent of the coloured rocks that artists like Michaelangelo and DaVince have been pulverizing into dust to mix into poppy seed and walnut oil to make paints for millenia. So, it's best to think of inorganic pigments as very very small coloured rocks.

Now, if you ask the nice man at the paint store to show you the colourants in the paint tinting machine he uses, you'll see 12 different colours. The red, yellow, blue, green, magenta and possibly orange colourants will all be glycerine with different organic pigments suspended in the glycerine.

(aside: They use glycerine as the carrier fluid in paint colourants because it's soluble in both water and mineral spirits so that the same colourants can be used to tint both oil based and latex paints. So, the same paint tinting machine can be used to tint all of the different kinds of paint a hardware store sells.)

The rest of the coloured liquids in the paint tinting machine cannisters will be glycerine with inorganic pigments in it, and these will be:

A. Black - which is made by burning natural gas in special ovens with insufficient oxygen so that copious amounts of soot are formed. That is, black paint is full of soot. Because of the extremely tiny collections of carbon atoms that form, black pigments are the smallest pigments used in any paint.

B. White - this will be the rutile form of titanium dioxide. Except for black, titanium dioxide is the second highest hiding pigment used in house paints.

C. Yellow Oxide - This is the synthetic equivalent of "Sienna" which is the natural rocks that are found in and around the Italian village of Siena where the rocks and ground have a distinctive greenish yellow "mustard" colour to them. For millenia artists have been pulverizing the rocks found near Siena into a fine powder to make a greenish yellow paint.

D. Red Oxide - This is the synthetic equivalent of the most common form of rust. It's reddish brown in colour, or the same colour as the planet Mars or the rust on a car.

E. Brown Oxide - This inorganic pigment is a chocolate brown colour, and is probably the most attractive colour to be found in an inorganic pigments (except perhaps for white).

F. Raw Umber - This is the synthetic equivalent of the clay called "Raw Umber". It's an extremely dark brown that could be easily mistaken for black.

Except for black, all of these inorganic pigments are the synthetic equivalent of the pulverized rocks that artists have been using to make paint for millenia.

NOW. Rocks are minerals, which are mostly the oxides, carbonates and silicates of metals, and metals are the most opaque materials known to man. You can stop more light with aluminum foil than you can with any other material of equal thickness. Consequently, rocks tend to be opaque. And, that's so much so that those that aren't opaque are valuable as gem stones unless they're so common as to be worthless, like quartz.

The opacity of rocks makes for good hide in paint. If you pulverize an opaque rock into a fine powder, the powder you end up with will have the same optical properties as the rock, and will be just as opaque as the rock. Consequently, as a general rule, paints that call mostly for inorganic pigments in their tint formula will normally have better hide than paints that call mostly for organic pigments in their tint formula.

The only problem with inorganic pigments is that the dust from pulverized rocks tend to clump together when mixed into a liquid, and this tends to lessen the hiding ability of paints tinted with inorganic pigments. So, you have two factors to consider with what kind of colour to choose. Organic pigments don't clump together nearly as much, but they're not as opaque and don't hide an underlying colour as well. Inorganic pigments, which are coloured rocks pulverized into a fine powder have excellent opacity, but tend to clump together, making them less effective than they would otherwise be at providing opacity and good hide. But, in general, pulverized rocks that tend to clump together in paint still provide better hide than organic pigments that don't.

ALSO. The average rock you might pick up to throw at someone is probably about 300 million years old. Let's face it, anything that old HAS to be extremely chemically stable or it would have decomposed by now. In fact, the reason the planet Mars is the same colour as the rust on my car is because of all the iron oxide in the rocks on it's surface. But, think about that. If Mars is the same colour as the rust on my car, then it hasn't faded at all in the billions of years that it was directly exposed to UV light from the Sun.

The web site won't allow posts longer than 10,000 characters, so I have to break it up into two posts...