Karastan Smartstrand or Karastan Wear Dated nylon???
gd2garden
12 years ago
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gd2garden
12 years agoRelated Discussions
Carpet Novice Needs Help with Karastan SmartStrand Carpet Choice
Comments (6)Thank you so much, echoflooring. You were absolutely right! We went back to the carpet store to get comfortable on all this before finalizing the order, and I figured I'd circle back for the benefit of anyone in the future who looks at this question. We went back and compared the carpet we chose to the "true friezes" and "true saxonies" they had. This Essential Living is something Karastan calls a "textured saxony." Fiber is much, much thicker, and considerable looser than a real saxony. Unlike the saxony, you can't make lasting footprints (or draw smiley faces as my son did), in the Essential Living carpet. About the same texture as the friezes, just a teeny bit longer and a little bit looser, and a bit softer. It's not as long as I remember it, and carpet vendor says they've had lots of experience putting it on stairs with no wear or safety issues. With his guidance we did scale the padding on the stairs back to a dense, thinner, pretty unyielding felt that should reduce concerns about too much padding/curve on stair treads. Thanks so much for all your help!...See MoreSmartstrand or Anso???
Comments (8)I think Floortech is offering good guidance. Lowes has a crazy deal with Mohawk and it is almost impossible to beat them. I went with Smartstrand from Lowes (their version of "Intelligent Style" renamed "Lucky Star") with the Smartcushion padding. After some heavy negotiation and price matching with a local store that had it on a crazy sale price of $2.39/ft (!!!!), I am having 720 ft installed for $2700, including a 13 step staircase. (fyi, I would have gone with the local store but they do not and would not install smartcushion, and would not promise power stretching). I had heard horror stories about Lowes installers. But the Lowes installer here is actually a local flooring company that gets very good reviews, and when I mentioned power stretching they said "of course." That is under $4/ft installed for carpet and padding with these specs: FIBER: Smartstrand Triexta BCF WARRANTY: Lifetime Stain, Lifetime Pet Urine, Lifetime Soil, 25 Year Abrasive Wear, 25 Year Texture Retention, Lifetime Anti-Static, 25 Year Fade-Resistance, 25 Year Manufacturing Defects DENSITY: 2936 TWIST: 5.50 X 5.50 SPI OR RPI: 8.1 FACE WEIGHT O: 58.8 GA OR PITCH: 1/10 FINISH PILE HEIGHT: 20/32 (15.8mm) My local Mohawk dealer said this was below his actual cost not counting the installation....See MoreSmartstrand carpet dilema
Comments (175)There are a lot of reasons to go with smart strand, but be careful of the patter salespeople use to push that brand. First, that isn't the only product that has a warranty against vomit. Most solution dyed products will have a warranty for that as well and even if they don't they'll perform strongly against it. Second, there is a real advantage to not relying on a topical stain treatment, but it does come at a cost. Spills on a smart strand carpet tend to pass into the backing quicker than a carpet with a heavy topical treatment and that's when stains become a real chore deal with regardless of how stain resistant your carpet is. Everything is tougher to clean when you're dealing with a stain that's penetrated the backing. So the big advantage of that imbedded stain treatment comes later down the line when you get to the end of the life of the carpet. 15 years down the road you'll still have pretty robust stain protection, but you're more likely to have to deal with reoccurring stains the first ten years when a top end topical treatment is really strong. I hope you love your new carpet and that it lasts for years, but I just thought you should know it sounds like your salesperson is a bit of a fibber, but there's a good chance he's only getting information from the company selling him products and hasn't done any research or invested in education....See Morehelp urgent--smart strand vs nylon for allergies
Comments (6)I have son who is terribly allergic to everything he was tested for (except animals) as well as asthmatic. He has two vials of serum and received 2 shots 2x a week (one in each arm). We are just beinning 2 shots 1x a week on the maintanance vial. Dust mites was one of his biggest reactions. After testing, we were about to replace his carpet with hard flooring when our pediatric allergist at the children's hospital recommended that we put in a low pile carpet. The Allergen world is now saying that a low pile carpet is ideal for allergy sufferes and asthmatics, as it traps the allergens rather than being constantly dispersed everytime they are walked on, or by any movement of the air. It does require some work though. Helping with allergies and asthma is not just a flooring issue but goes way further than that. In our case: * we rearranged the furniture. Only his headboard is against the wall so we can get to baseboards easily. * Night stand is off the floor, replaced by a cool shelf and bracket we got from ikea, with a clip on bendable arm reading light. * Dresser now is wall mounted in the closet (raised 11 inches off floor and from ikea) * One tall bookcase (also from ikea) that is attached to the wall and sits on the floor. Ikea makes the bottom cut away for the baseboard so the unit is totally flush against the wall. Minimal dust gets back there and also cant be disturbed by air movement. *He cannot be in his room when it is cleaned which is done faithfully every week. *Hepa filter vacuum is a must. *Room is vacuumed, baseboards are wiped down *as well as the crevice where carpet and moulding meet) with damp rag sprayed with dust mite control spray. *Dust mite control spray is again applied to the low pile carpet (we put in Shaw Tuftex). Wait 1-2 hours (which he cannot go in there) and we vacuum thouroghly again. *Blinds are vacuumed weekly and wiped down monthly. *Ceiling fan wiped and dusted weekly. *Matress is encased in a protective zippered cover. *Pillow is an allergy control pillow also encased in allergy cover. *His comforter is allergy control but encased in a regular duvet cover that is washed on sanitary cycle weekly. *No window treatment or wall mounted pictures in his room so we put cool wall decals http://www.whatisblik.com/ I bought a steamer mop at a hardware store and I steam his carpet 1-2 times a month. I do the rest of the house (wood and carpet) more often. Because there is some costs involed, we did some things right away and some things over time. It is overwhelming at first having such a rigorous cleaning routine, but after a while, it becomes easier. We have now begun doing the other two kids bedrooms the same way, though neither has allergies or athsma. Here is a link to a swedish study about solid flooring vs carpet, where carpet was outlawed in public building in 1973 and carpet became only 2% of all flooring, yet allergy sufferers incleased dramatically over the 30+ years time. Here is a link that might be useful: Carpet vs Hard Surface Flooring for allergies...See MoreFloortech
12 years agogd2garden
12 years agogd2garden
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