After years in residential remodeling and tearing up many a w2w I cannot unsee how disgusting they are. I can also say from that experience they also tend to be the largest contributor to lingering odors as well. We’d pull a carpet out and come back after lunch and notice the place didn’t smell any more.
The only carpet we’ve got at home is 5x8 rug in the living room. It’s small enough to take out a clean regularly. It’s all I ever want.
agreed with all of that lloyd! and you barely even touched in my biggest gripe with carpet, how hard it is to clean; i can mop a tile floor, and both linoleum and wood floors can be cleaned as well, with a bit more care. carpet, on the other hand, can barely even be hoovered effectively.
if you want the soft, sound absorbing flooring, get a cleanable floor and put a rug on it, they're easier to clean than carpet, and can be replaced easier if things do go very wrong.
“W2W, is climbing out of basements and rec rooms.” Like some slime creature in a horror film.
My wife likes to house hunt. We both dislike w2w carpeting. So when she finds a house with carpeting, usually in the bedroom, I ask her when the house was built. If it’s an older house I figure we would find hardwood floors underneath when we tear out the carpet. Newer homes probably plywood or worse.
There are people who will always defer to the "experts" and in your case, they are your vaunted "designers". Tell me this - do you REALLY think that a small cadre of people have the power to decide what is best for others? And eliminate an entire industry?
The better question is, will ordinary people who make the actual decisions on what their floors are covered with? After all, they are the ones with the money and will decide what THEY like instead of listening to "floor technocrats".
Consumers have the final say. Always.
Unless, of course, the government technocrats and our "we know betters" get in the way. Because of hubris.
I don’t usually respond to this kind of stuff, but really, there are experts. There are studies. There are doctors. there is also a massive petrochemical industry making polyester and putting millions into marketing with images of happy babies crawling on carpet. There is a reason good hotels all now have luxury vinyl instead of carpet- they know nobody wants to walk on this stuff anymore. So yes, I do believe there is a small cadre of people who study shit and know what they are talking about. I can’t believe anyone even has to say this.
Don't get me wrong - while I like carpet, some of it is going to get ripped out and replaced with tile (around my wood stove's brick hearth) and wood (dining room) as I rehab my home.
Not because of Lloyd's distaste for carpet, I just want a change and the look and feel of solid wood is something that I want underfoot..
But tag teaming on my previous comments, it will be MY decision and not based on any expert's "decision for me". Just like the new gas stove that I'll be purchasing soon. When Choice is removed, what's left?
To summarize - if every expert's advice became a functional law, we would swiftly be transitioned from being a Permissionless Society (on the Freedom side of the spectrum) to a Permission-Required one (toward the tyrannical end of the spectrum). Instead, give us your advice but understand that others make the choices that best fit their needs.
After all, every time I see or hear "You don't need that", I see someone that has no problem in removing Choice from me in order to wield it only by themselves.
Granita Grokette, why so angry? Nobody anywhere here mentioned BANNING W2W. Useful information is being shared. I could still go buy a wall to wall carpet today if I wanted to. It's clear that you are triggered by anyone writing about anything Environmental, climate change or anything else in the vein of your hated progressiveness. The vast majority of us are just here to learn. I don't go to conservative websites just to harass and mock your type. You are achieving nothing here.
"You are achieving nothing here." Actually, with your response, I have achieved, in part, something.
Actually, I WOULD invite you to come to GraniteGrok and write in our comments area. I'd also invite you to submit a post (or few) as well. I have no problem with contrarian viewpoints. Just send it to Skip@GraniteGrok.com and I WILL publish it as long as there is no threatening of violence.
Please note - I extend that Free Speech atmosphere to my writers and commenters - be very sure that they will let you know what they think of it if you are willing to rise to the occasion of my offer.
Offer is extended to anyone else here as well - and CERTAINLY, Lloyd, to you as well.
"it’s clear that wall to wall carpeting does not belong in a healthy home."
Lloyd has already made it clear that if he could ban gas stoves, he would ("Electrify Everything!") and taking the choice of gas stoves away from others. Sure, he wraps it all up in studies about this or that (gases, particulates, and the like) but I had to remind him of how convoluted the testing was done as I read the report he quoted.
This is just the continuation of that. Which is the continuation of his emphasis on removing cars and trucks simply because he doesn't see the need for them in the hands of others.
"you are triggered by anyone writing about anything Environmental, climate change or anything else"
And you'd be wrong. Absolutely wrong as to my reasoning and intent for what I write here - you've only "surface skimmed" and not contemplated the deeper meanings.
Now, I COULD go on on about Progressives (the euphemism brought back from Germany by American intellectuals knowing that calling themselves socialists wouldn't fly at all with the American public). However, I won't unless Lloyd said it was alright, because the foundational issue is who gets to make Choices.
Plenty of people still use foam insulation so what's the problem?
As far as asbestos is concerned, there were plenty of experts around that had no problem with it when it was first used and for years afterwards...until they did. Which is one large reason I hold back because Science is NEVER settled as new things are always being discovered that was actively ignored or dismissed.
You also make my point about technocratic rule. We aren't that here in the US (although many, of the "Progressive" persuasion" want it in the worst way) - we are a Constitutional Republic. Just because some "government expert" says I cannot, it's not up to him or her. Our laws are created by our elected Representatives, not bureaucrats.
Especially after the Chevron decision. I only wish that the 1948 Administrative Procedures Act had never been passed. Now with Chevron and the "major decisions" judicial doctrine being reapplied, we'll be moving back to the Separation of Powers that is needful.
If you can find asbestos on the market for consumers to purchase, then maybe you can suggest they pair it with some nice lead paint and ivory to complete the look.
Extremism as an argument isn’t really helpful. Carpet has existed for decades, is a legal product to sell and purchase, and is a useful product for deadening the sounds made by annoying people who like to whinge about ridiculous things.
Understood. But disagree - I like carpet under my feet for certain areas of my home. So do a lot of others. And hotels understand that they save money as carpets take a longer time to clean than vinyl flooring - they are looking at their bottom line via labor costs.
The point I'm trying to make is that experts don't have to be listened to - and they don't like being ignored. Too often, those who have amassed a lot of expertise all but DEMAND to make decisions that others MUST follow. But giving advice is not coupled with an entitlement to having everyone bowing down to them. At least in a Free Country.
In non-free countries, your mileage will vary.
And then get upset when people, seeking their own Happiness, just ignore them. Then those experts get a bee up their behind and bitterly complain that no one is listening to them.
Frankly, they either have a miserable marketing plan to showcase themselves AND/or have assumed an entitlement attitude of "How DARE they not listen to me?".
Even you, Lloyd, have alluded to this mistake of your fellow sustainabilitors in the past.
And I'll throw this out. Even the COVID expert, Dr. Fauci, finally admitted that his mandatory mask wearing and 6" social distancing rules were made up with no peer-reviewed studies backing up the efficacy of both. I bet I can verifiably, to your assent, come up with more examples.
The moral is that "experts" have forgotten that they may be wonderful advisors but have failed to accept that people don't HAVE to accept their advice just on their say-so. They have failed to realize that many of the people they are demanding to preach to are part of the large "Just leave me the hell alone" coalition - they just want to live their lives THEIR way and not be preached to others by others. And they are willing to accept those risks that come with their own decisions.
The results end up being that the experts end up in a snit in that they are being ignored. Why? They have forgotten their proper place in society - give advice and remember it may not be followed. They should not be in the business of making decisions that others must follow.
And remember, the long ago experts demanded that we should accept that the earth was flat and that the universe orbited the Earth and many other such items that were finally proved to be false (like social distancing). Not all experts are really experts, especially when they stray from their expertise (like celebrity astro-physicist Neil de Grasse who just proclaimed that sex is not dependent on XX / XY chromosomes). What kind of bell does that ring with the ordinary folks, Lloyd?
>>”There is a reason good hotels all now have luxury vinyl instead of carpet- they know nobody wants to walk on this stuff anymore.”
Actually, they’re doing it because it’s quicker, quieter, and cheaper to have luxury vinyl than carpet, especially as minimum wage increases of room service employees have impacted profitability. But as far as the health benefits are concerned, that’s far less straightforward. I can see hair on a vinyl floor much more easily than on carpet, and if I do then I have far greater concerns about the cleanliness of the rest of the room (and hotel in general, by extension.) When I’m in a hotel—and I used to spend 75% of my work travel days in one—I don’t want to feel like I’m in a cold, sterile, hardscape box after a long day of work. I also don’t want to hear every single tiptoe in shoes from other guests above or beside me. But aside from that, it’s a big leap in assumptions between hotels and homeowners who have no one to please but themselves.
Those hotel bedbug outbreaks in recent years have all been in the updated non-carpeted ones. Hard flooring isn’t a panacea for cleanliness.
"The calming luxury" of wall to wall. If you had a word cloud for the average upscale clothing/bedding catalog the winner would be: "Comfort." Soothing the nerves of the jangled nerve class is job #1. ("Comfy" would be word #2).
I’m not seeing an issue with the return of W2W if that’s what a homeowner wants. The WSJ article references the desire for people to escape the loud, harsh reality of the outside world and enjoy what amounts to a more hygge living space. That should be commended, not vilified.
No one goes into a large purchase like W2W without knowing the expenses of installation and maintenance … and if they do, then it’s on them as ill-informed homeowners to fix their mistake. But complaining about how carpet is “the new poop” when your cellphone has FAR more fecal bacteria on its impermeable surface than does shag carpet is just silly. Dust is a problem? Then vacuum the damn thing. Bedbugs inside? Maintain better vigilance after getting rid of them. Seriously, this isn’t rocket science we’re dealing with here, it’s an aesthetic preference.
And I fail to see why anyone’s aesthetic preference would be problematic for anyone else.
After years in residential remodeling and tearing up many a w2w I cannot unsee how disgusting they are. I can also say from that experience they also tend to be the largest contributor to lingering odors as well. We’d pull a carpet out and come back after lunch and notice the place didn’t smell any more.
The only carpet we’ve got at home is 5x8 rug in the living room. It’s small enough to take out a clean regularly. It’s all I ever want.
agreed with all of that lloyd! and you barely even touched in my biggest gripe with carpet, how hard it is to clean; i can mop a tile floor, and both linoleum and wood floors can be cleaned as well, with a bit more care. carpet, on the other hand, can barely even be hoovered effectively.
if you want the soft, sound absorbing flooring, get a cleanable floor and put a rug on it, they're easier to clean than carpet, and can be replaced easier if things do go very wrong.
tldr; carpet
>>”Carpet, on the other hand, can barely even be hoovered effectively.”
Are you using a broom or soda straw to clean it? That might be your problem.
“W2W, is climbing out of basements and rec rooms.” Like some slime creature in a horror film.
My wife likes to house hunt. We both dislike w2w carpeting. So when she finds a house with carpeting, usually in the bedroom, I ask her when the house was built. If it’s an older house I figure we would find hardwood floors underneath when we tear out the carpet. Newer homes probably plywood or worse.
"Designers should nip this trend in the bud"
There are people who will always defer to the "experts" and in your case, they are your vaunted "designers". Tell me this - do you REALLY think that a small cadre of people have the power to decide what is best for others? And eliminate an entire industry?
The better question is, will ordinary people who make the actual decisions on what their floors are covered with? After all, they are the ones with the money and will decide what THEY like instead of listening to "floor technocrats".
Consumers have the final say. Always.
Unless, of course, the government technocrats and our "we know betters" get in the way. Because of hubris.
I don’t usually respond to this kind of stuff, but really, there are experts. There are studies. There are doctors. there is also a massive petrochemical industry making polyester and putting millions into marketing with images of happy babies crawling on carpet. There is a reason good hotels all now have luxury vinyl instead of carpet- they know nobody wants to walk on this stuff anymore. So yes, I do believe there is a small cadre of people who study shit and know what they are talking about. I can’t believe anyone even has to say this.
A lot of volume builders use carpeting in new homes because it's cheap.
Agreed. It is far cheaper to install than putting in the type of flooring Lloyd is demanding that we all adopt.
And quite a lot of folks still like it - Home Depot, Lowes, and smaller flooring shops sell quite a bit of it to ordinary people.
Don't get me wrong - while I like carpet, some of it is going to get ripped out and replaced with tile (around my wood stove's brick hearth) and wood (dining room) as I rehab my home.
Not because of Lloyd's distaste for carpet, I just want a change and the look and feel of solid wood is something that I want underfoot..
But tag teaming on my previous comments, it will be MY decision and not based on any expert's "decision for me". Just like the new gas stove that I'll be purchasing soon. When Choice is removed, what's left?
To summarize - if every expert's advice became a functional law, we would swiftly be transitioned from being a Permissionless Society (on the Freedom side of the spectrum) to a Permission-Required one (toward the tyrannical end of the spectrum). Instead, give us your advice but understand that others make the choices that best fit their needs.
After all, every time I see or hear "You don't need that", I see someone that has no problem in removing Choice from me in order to wield it only by themselves.
Granita Grokette, why so angry? Nobody anywhere here mentioned BANNING W2W. Useful information is being shared. I could still go buy a wall to wall carpet today if I wanted to. It's clear that you are triggered by anyone writing about anything Environmental, climate change or anything else in the vein of your hated progressiveness. The vast majority of us are just here to learn. I don't go to conservative websites just to harass and mock your type. You are achieving nothing here.
"You are achieving nothing here." Actually, with your response, I have achieved, in part, something.
Actually, I WOULD invite you to come to GraniteGrok and write in our comments area. I'd also invite you to submit a post (or few) as well. I have no problem with contrarian viewpoints. Just send it to Skip@GraniteGrok.com and I WILL publish it as long as there is no threatening of violence.
Please note - I extend that Free Speech atmosphere to my writers and commenters - be very sure that they will let you know what they think of it if you are willing to rise to the occasion of my offer.
Offer is extended to anyone else here as well - and CERTAINLY, Lloyd, to you as well.
Actually, I forgot about this line that I quoted from Lloyd's post that Lloyd wrote:
""Designers should nip this trend in the bud""
Tacit approval from Lloyd to go ahead and effectively ban carpeting.
Change my mind, Geoffrey.
"it’s clear that wall to wall carpeting does not belong in a healthy home."
Lloyd has already made it clear that if he could ban gas stoves, he would ("Electrify Everything!") and taking the choice of gas stoves away from others. Sure, he wraps it all up in studies about this or that (gases, particulates, and the like) but I had to remind him of how convoluted the testing was done as I read the report he quoted.
This is just the continuation of that. Which is the continuation of his emphasis on removing cars and trucks simply because he doesn't see the need for them in the hands of others.
"you are triggered by anyone writing about anything Environmental, climate change or anything else"
And you'd be wrong. Absolutely wrong as to my reasoning and intent for what I write here - you've only "surface skimmed" and not contemplated the deeper meanings.
Now, I COULD go on on about Progressives (the euphemism brought back from Germany by American intellectuals knowing that calling themselves socialists wouldn't fly at all with the American public). However, I won't unless Lloyd said it was alright, because the foundational issue is who gets to make Choices.
.
Right. If you want to use asbestos or urea foam insulation, why should some government "expert" say you can't?
Plenty of people still use foam insulation so what's the problem?
As far as asbestos is concerned, there were plenty of experts around that had no problem with it when it was first used and for years afterwards...until they did. Which is one large reason I hold back because Science is NEVER settled as new things are always being discovered that was actively ignored or dismissed.
You also make my point about technocratic rule. We aren't that here in the US (although many, of the "Progressive" persuasion" want it in the worst way) - we are a Constitutional Republic. Just because some "government expert" says I cannot, it's not up to him or her. Our laws are created by our elected Representatives, not bureaucrats.
Especially after the Chevron decision. I only wish that the 1948 Administrative Procedures Act had never been passed. Now with Chevron and the "major decisions" judicial doctrine being reapplied, we'll be moving back to the Separation of Powers that is needful.
If you can find asbestos on the market for consumers to purchase, then maybe you can suggest they pair it with some nice lead paint and ivory to complete the look.
Extremism as an argument isn’t really helpful. Carpet has existed for decades, is a legal product to sell and purchase, and is a useful product for deadening the sounds made by annoying people who like to whinge about ridiculous things.
Understood. But disagree - I like carpet under my feet for certain areas of my home. So do a lot of others. And hotels understand that they save money as carpets take a longer time to clean than vinyl flooring - they are looking at their bottom line via labor costs.
The point I'm trying to make is that experts don't have to be listened to - and they don't like being ignored. Too often, those who have amassed a lot of expertise all but DEMAND to make decisions that others MUST follow. But giving advice is not coupled with an entitlement to having everyone bowing down to them. At least in a Free Country.
In non-free countries, your mileage will vary.
And then get upset when people, seeking their own Happiness, just ignore them. Then those experts get a bee up their behind and bitterly complain that no one is listening to them.
Frankly, they either have a miserable marketing plan to showcase themselves AND/or have assumed an entitlement attitude of "How DARE they not listen to me?".
Even you, Lloyd, have alluded to this mistake of your fellow sustainabilitors in the past.
And I'll throw this out. Even the COVID expert, Dr. Fauci, finally admitted that his mandatory mask wearing and 6" social distancing rules were made up with no peer-reviewed studies backing up the efficacy of both. I bet I can verifiably, to your assent, come up with more examples.
The moral is that "experts" have forgotten that they may be wonderful advisors but have failed to accept that people don't HAVE to accept their advice just on their say-so. They have failed to realize that many of the people they are demanding to preach to are part of the large "Just leave me the hell alone" coalition - they just want to live their lives THEIR way and not be preached to others by others. And they are willing to accept those risks that come with their own decisions.
The results end up being that the experts end up in a snit in that they are being ignored. Why? They have forgotten their proper place in society - give advice and remember it may not be followed. They should not be in the business of making decisions that others must follow.
And remember, the long ago experts demanded that we should accept that the earth was flat and that the universe orbited the Earth and many other such items that were finally proved to be false (like social distancing). Not all experts are really experts, especially when they stray from their expertise (like celebrity astro-physicist Neil de Grasse who just proclaimed that sex is not dependent on XX / XY chromosomes). What kind of bell does that ring with the ordinary folks, Lloyd?
And I have no idea why my comment got duplicated...feel free to delete the duplicate.
>>”There is a reason good hotels all now have luxury vinyl instead of carpet- they know nobody wants to walk on this stuff anymore.”
Actually, they’re doing it because it’s quicker, quieter, and cheaper to have luxury vinyl than carpet, especially as minimum wage increases of room service employees have impacted profitability. But as far as the health benefits are concerned, that’s far less straightforward. I can see hair on a vinyl floor much more easily than on carpet, and if I do then I have far greater concerns about the cleanliness of the rest of the room (and hotel in general, by extension.) When I’m in a hotel—and I used to spend 75% of my work travel days in one—I don’t want to feel like I’m in a cold, sterile, hardscape box after a long day of work. I also don’t want to hear every single tiptoe in shoes from other guests above or beside me. But aside from that, it’s a big leap in assumptions between hotels and homeowners who have no one to please but themselves.
Those hotel bedbug outbreaks in recent years have all been in the updated non-carpeted ones. Hard flooring isn’t a panacea for cleanliness.
"The calming luxury" of wall to wall. If you had a word cloud for the average upscale clothing/bedding catalog the winner would be: "Comfort." Soothing the nerves of the jangled nerve class is job #1. ("Comfy" would be word #2).
I’m not seeing an issue with the return of W2W if that’s what a homeowner wants. The WSJ article references the desire for people to escape the loud, harsh reality of the outside world and enjoy what amounts to a more hygge living space. That should be commended, not vilified.
No one goes into a large purchase like W2W without knowing the expenses of installation and maintenance … and if they do, then it’s on them as ill-informed homeowners to fix their mistake. But complaining about how carpet is “the new poop” when your cellphone has FAR more fecal bacteria on its impermeable surface than does shag carpet is just silly. Dust is a problem? Then vacuum the damn thing. Bedbugs inside? Maintain better vigilance after getting rid of them. Seriously, this isn’t rocket science we’re dealing with here, it’s an aesthetic preference.
And I fail to see why anyone’s aesthetic preference would be problematic for anyone else.
All the new homes I test have w2w everywhere but the ground floor (bath and laundry rooms excepted).