This is not so much about questions as it is about answers regarding carpet cushion, not pad, as it is commonly called. Pad is cheap, soft, extremely compressible, and virtually worthless in promoting healthy performance of carpet. An example of pad is the very lightweight prime urethane cushions. You can see daylight through this stuff when holding it over your head, a simple indication it is not a high quality, performance enhancing material.

IMPROVES PERFORMANCE

The purpose of cushion is to increase the performance of carpet, provide comfort underfoot, offer sound and temperature insulation, and, in general, create added value for the product under which it is placed. There is no question the proper cushion will allow any carpet to deliver increased performance.

Often, the consumer is shortchanged because a retailer can’t sell. Even if a carpet is not a great quality product, you should sell a good cushion to improve its performance. This is cheap insurance for both you and the customer against complaints in the future for matting, crushing, depressed traffic lanes, and the like.

Let’s look at cushion qualities and the effects of not having the proper one. The cushion should be low profile and dense. It should not raise the broadloom above the top of the pins on the tackstrip and it should allow for a perpendicular engagement of the carpet onto the tackstrip.

A thick cushion will raise the carpet too high and allow it to cascade over the tackstrip pins, which will result in a loose installation. When this occurs, the carpet will wrinkle and buckle. When you try to restretch the carpet, you are doing so under the same conditions and are doomed to another failure. You never thought it might be what you sold or specified for cushion causing the problem, did you?

Also, you must secure the cushion to the floor by gluing or stapling before you stretch the carpet onto it. If not, when you stretch the carpet, you’ll pull the cushion along with it on top of the tackstrip and the carpet will be unable to engage the pins. Remember this simple law of physics: Two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time. If the cushion’s on the tackstrip, the broadloom can’t be.

Again, you’ll have wrinkling and buckling problems as a result. You should also tape the seams of the cushion and run it in the opposite direction as the carpet. I don’t subscribe to “industry standards” on cushion; they are too low and were a political compromise between the carpet and cushion guys. I prefer a 1/4 inch to 5/16 inch cushion of at least 10 lb.density. This will give you proper engagement of carpet onto the tackstrip and will prevent excessive vertical and lateral movement of the broadloom which will also cause buckles and wrinkles.

I also prefer high density urethane cushion, available from a number of mills, because it is low profile and high performance. Nothing performs like or is of higher quality than these types of cushions. Additionally, the consumer will have to invest in cushion once, because these cushions will not break down. You can sell this product at a higher price, reap more profit, and tell the consumer you are protecting the environment by eliminating non-biodegradable waste. Furthermore, you’ll eliminate or minimize complaints on buckles, wrinkles, matting, crushing, appearance loss, deep furniture indentations, etc.

After these products, you can offer slab rubber; then high density, needle punched synthetic, and down the line to denser rebonds and sliding precipitously to the other forms of cushion which are only pad, regardless of who says what about them.

The importance of using the proper cushion cannot be stressed enough. I find it very disturbing that so much cheap pad permeates the market and is installed improperly. Certainly, product which won’t hold a stretch due to dimensional stability is a problem. But, a lot of the problem is created by you not understanding you have to sell quality to keep your profits.