When people pick out carpet, they spend their time on color and feel. The pad underneath barely gets a thought, and it is often the line on the quote people want to trim. That is backwards. The pad is what the carpet sits on for the next ten or fifteen years, and it decides a lot about how that carpet feels, how quiet it is and how long it keeps its look.
Carpet is what we sell and install most, so here is what pad does, the main kinds you will hear about, and how to choose the right one for each room.
What the pad does
- It takes the beating. Every step presses the carpet down. The pad absorbs that so the backing and fibers are not ground against the subfloor.
- It keeps the carpet stable. A good pad holds the carpet flat and tight between the walls. A pad that gives too much lets the carpet flex with every step, which loosens it over time.
- It adds comfort and quiet. Pad is most of what makes carpet feel soft, and it cuts the sound of footsteps, which matters on stairs and upstairs rooms.
- It adds warmth. Over a crawl space or a slab, pad is part of why a carpeted room feels warmer than a hard floor. The best flooring for a house with a crawl space goes into that.
The main types
- Bonded foam, often called rebond. Pieces of recycled foam bonded together into a sheet. You can see the multicolored chips. It is the most common residential pad, it comes in a wide range of densities, and a dense rebond is a good pad for most homes.
- Prime foam and memory foam. Made as one solid piece of foam rather than from scraps. Memory foam feels very soft underfoot. Some of these are good pads, but soft is not the same as supportive, so look at density, not just feel.
- Rubber. Heavier and firmer, and long-lasting. It costs more and is less common in homes, but it holds up well under heavy traffic.
- Fiber or felt. A dense, thin pad made from pressed fibers. It is firm with very little give, which makes it a common choice under berber and other loop carpets, and under some commercial carpet.
Density matters more than thickness
Pad is sold by two numbers: thickness in inches and density in pounds per cubic foot. Thickness is the one people notice, because a thicker pad feels softer in the store. Density is the one that matters.
A dense pad pushes back. It supports the carpet, keeps it from flexing and recovers after it is stepped on. A thick, low-density pad feels luxurious for the first year and then flattens along the walkways, and the carpet above it starts to ripple and wear faster. When to replace carpet explains how a failed pad shows up.
As a rough guide, most residential cut pile carpet does best on a pad around 3/8 to 7/16 of an inch thick, and a pad thicker than about half an inch is usually a mistake. Loop carpets like berber need a thinner, firmer pad, often no more than 3/8 of an inch, because too much give lets the loops pull and the backing flex. The carpet manufacturer's own requirements are what count, and many warranties name a minimum density and a maximum thickness. Going outside them can void the warranty.
Moisture barrier pads
Some pads have a thin film bonded to the top. A spill sits on the film instead of soaking into the pad and the subfloor, so it can be blotted up and does not come back as a stain or an odor later.
They are worth considering in a house with pets or small children. Two things to know: they do not make carpet waterproof, because liquid can still reach the pad at seams and along the walls, and they will not fix an odor that is already in the subfloor. That has to be dealt with before new pad goes down. The best flooring for dogs and kids covers the rest of the choice.
Picking a pad room by room
- Bedrooms. The place to spend a little more on comfort. A dense pad in the usual thickness range feels soft without giving up support.
- Hallways, stairs and family rooms. Density first. These are the rooms where a soft pad wears out first and takes the carpet with it. On stairs, a firm pad also helps the carpet hold tight over the nose of each step. Carpet or vinyl plank on the stairs has more on staircases.
- Berber and loop carpet. Thin and firm, matched to what the carpet maker calls for. Cut pile, frieze or berber? explains the styles.
- Rooms with pets. A dense pad with a moisture barrier, plus a carpet that cleans easily.
- Over a slab. The pad adds warmth and some cushion against the concrete, but any moisture coming up through the slab has to be checked first. Flooring over a concrete slab covers that.
Always new pad with new carpet
Old pad comes out with the old carpet. It has been compressed for years, it holds whatever has soaked into it, and it is shaped to the old carpet's traffic paths. Putting new carpet on old pad is the fastest way to make a new carpet look old. Our floor removal takes out the carpet, the pad and the staples it was held down with, so the new pad goes onto a clean subfloor.
Feel it before you choose
Pad is easier to understand under your feet than on paper. At a free in-home estimate we bring carpet samples and pad to your house, measure the rooms, and recommend a pad that fits both the carpet and the room. Book one here or call 573-471-8700. We are on Virginia Street in Sikeston and work across the area, including Scott City, New Madrid and Dexter.
