White House & Home

When making a choice between hardwood flooring or full floor carpeting, the issue of allergies always pops up. Rightly so, considering that so many people suffer from them and if you have children the effects might be worse on them.

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The argument for carpeting

Those promoting carpets will reveal that recent research has come up with results that show that a carpet, that has been thoroughly cleaned, will cut down on the risks that carpets are said to have in terms of allergies. They will claim that it trumps choices like grey laminate flooring or hardwood and is the better choice for asthma sufferers because all the dust in the air gets caught in the carpet and can’t be inhaled.

Another factor that affects allergy sufferers in the home is mould. Ensuring that the carpet is always clean and dry is one way of avoiding mould. It is …

Folk wisdom tells us “keep your head warm and your feet warm and the rest takes care of itself”. While that is probably an exaggeration, most of us agree that a warm floor makes a big difference when we’re trying to keep comfortable in winter.

Warmer floors are also disproportionately comforting to our pockets. Floor insulation can be one of the cheapest ways to improve the energy efficiency of our homes. Officially, it’s estimated that 10-15  of the energy lost from a house escapes through the ground floor, but it can feel much more. Costs are usually recouped in just two years. Compare that to about 4 years for cavity insulation and 8 years for double glazing.

Engineered flooring

Most types of modern engineered flooring have good thermal ratings. They are often fitted over pre-existing solid floors or ill-fitting floor boards, so they can hardly make your insulation worse. The …