A Wave Of New Carpet Technology

There is no such thing as a natural fiber flood-resistant carpet. Water shrinks wool and turns sisal black.

But that’s not the case for synthetic carpets, according to Robert Gill, owner of The CarpetMan in Southampton. Most are completely salvageable when wet, he said, and can be easily dried out with dehumidifiers and reinstalled with no problem.

However, the majority of Hurricane Sandy’s victims last month weren’t so fortunate. Mr. Gill’s business handled 150 cases of flooded carpets, he said. Normally, he’d try to save the carpet but there wasn’t enough drying equipment to go around, he said, forcing him to rip out almost all the contaminated carpets and abandon them outside. The ruined carpeting was just the top layer of the problem, he said, adding that there was an even more insidious, and growing, problem beneath the rugs.

“The biggest thing during a hurricane, which most people don’t realize, is the padding underneath the carpet will hold hundreds of gallons of water. And the face of the carpet will dry out and I’ll come by maybe two weeks later and I’ll be like, ‘Oh my God,’” Mr. Gill said during an interview at his store last week. “Because what happens is, the pad feeds the walls. And then it starts to migrate up in the wall and you create a situation of mildew.”

He’s seen it happen more times than he can count, he said.

“Unfortunately, since I’m a flooring guy, I want to think that the flooring is the most precious item they have in their house, and it’s not,” he said. “If it’s full of water, it’s the cheapest item that’s in the room and if it starts to damage the walls and insulation behind the walls, you don’t want to save a penny and cost yourself a hundred bucks. It’s silly. If you’re not dealing with tens of thousands of dollars in your flooring, get it out and the biggest cost you have is buying a new carpet.”

Homeowners today have thousands of options—from soft plushes to looped berbers to showy shags—and many of them are infused with the latest in carpet technology.

The newest line at Carpet One of the Hamptons is Resista, a soft carpet that repels stains, odors and bacteria, according to general manager John Annunziata. The material costs between $2.99 and $4.99 per square foot, he reported.

“They’re putting bits of silver in it and that’s going to help with the bacteria resistance,” he explained during an interview at the Southampton store last week. “And they put a stain guard on it. It has a 10-year spill-proof guarantee, which covers any kind of liquid that spills on it. Regular stains, nothing dramatic.”

Tigressá SoftStyle nylon carpets, which also cost between $2.99 and $4.99 per square foot, feature twisted fibers that give the material more bounce and texture retention, Mr. Annunziata said. But Lees nylon carpets, which are produced by the Mohawk Group, are “the super best,” store owner Arlene Salvaggio said.

Exclusive to Carpet One, the brand boasts a 25-year stain guarantee, provided the homeowners professionally clean the carpet every 18 months, she said. The material costs between $2.99 and $6.99 per square foot, she reported.

Mr. Gill of The CarpetMan is more hesitant when it comes to promoting new carpet technologies, he said.

“I’ve been doing carpets my entire life. Usually, new ideas end up three or four years down the road exploding. It flattens out, it doesn’t clean, it crushes, and now I have all these customers, who trusted me, with a product that’s kind of like, ‘Eh,’” he said. “Where good old nylon’s been here since the ’50s, early ’60s and it really works.”

But he said he is taking a chance on Mohawk’s SmartStrand, which is a stain-resistant, very soft carpet—a trend in carpets today. Every carpet strand has a kink structure that makes it rebound to resist crushing and matting, he said.

“Feel that,” he rubbed his hand on a roll of carpet. “Typical, tough carpet we grew up on, right? And now feel this one.”

He walked over to a display of SmartStrand carpets. “That’s pretty much where a lot of the synthetic carpets are heading, away from that rough, scratchy, ‘Hi, I’m nylon’ synthetic thing that you won’t want to spend time on to something that’s really silky soft. And if it lives up to all its no-kink, no-stains, no-worries stuff that they’re promoting, then it really is a great carpet. But it’s early. It’s only a year or two into it, so hopefully they’re not kidding us.”

From what he’s seen, the average lifetime for any given carpet is seven to 10 years, if it’s well-used, he said.

“It can last, with nowadays technology, a lot longer if you put it into a guest bedroom. You can have a carpet in there for 20 years,” he said. “But in a playroom in the basement? I have four kids. I’d be lucky to get seven years. And I own a carpet cleaning company and a carpet company.”

He laughed. “Neither one helps. But you can’t ever beat carpet. It’s a warm environment with kids playing on it. Most basements that get flooded, do you want your kids sitting on a ceramic tile floor playing or do you want them playing on some kind of carpet? It drives most people that way.”