Choosing Wool Carpet for your Home

The Beauty (and Pitfalls) of Choosing Wool Carpet for your Home

Wool carpet is very gorgeous, durable, and luxurious and feels great underfoot. It also comes in wonderful, subtle shades as yet unmatched in synthetic fibers simply because wool accepts a wider range of colored dyes better than any other material.

Made from hair shorn from sheep, then spun, woven or twisted into carpet, wool survives longer and looks better than any other carpet material on earth. If you doubt this, just look at the antique Oriental rugs sold by antiques dealers and displayed in museums—some are 200 years old and more!

Because wool is an opaque fiber, it hides soil better than synthetics and stands up better in high-traffic areas; check out the high-end carpeting and wool area rugs in 5-star hotels, shops and restaurants and you’ll invariably find they are made of wool. Wool’s greater absorbency makes it easy to clean with water and steam because moisture causes wool fibers to swell and release dirt.

So what are the disadvantages to wool carpeting? Well, wool’s excellent absorbency also means that carpets made from wool stain easily, especially when acidic liquids such as wine are involved. The colors in wool carpet can fade from sun exposure over time more than the colors in synthetics.

Wool carpeting can also “pill” just as wool sweaters do, and contrary to popular belief, wool carpet does not repel dust mites or reduce the number of allergens in the home. The fact is that although bare floors are touted as keeping allergens under control, just about any carpet will reduce allergen exposure if it is kept clean. The reason is that any carpet can act as a dust-trapper, while bare floors keep air and dust moving, which keeps more allergens in the air as well.

The biggest argument against wool carpeting for most people, though, is its high cost. Wool carpeting usually costs more than $100 per square yard—when you consider that you can buy synthetic carpeting for less than a tenth of that, wool doesn’t look like much of a bargain. FYI: The high cost of wool comes from the costs associated with processing and preparing the fiber to be made into carpet, not the cost of the sheep’s wool itself. However, when measuring the costs of wool carpeting against carpeting made from synthetic materials, bear in mind that wool’s longer life span means you won’t need to re-carpet as soon if you choose wool.

Nothing offers natural luxury underfoot than real wool carpeting and it provides a sense of elegance in home décor that cannot be matched with synthetic rugs. Of course, it is a matter of choice that is ultimately determined by your pocketbook.

©2007, Kathy Burns-Millyard. All Rights Reserved.