The hunt for affordable, environmentally friendly carpet
I decided it was time to change the carpet in the bedrooms. The previous owner had dogs and after trying to remove the odor of the dogs, I still had no luck. So, I started a quick hunt for environmentally friendly carpet. I wanted a low VOC carpet, one that would emit less chemicals. Wool was the preferred type (wool doesn’t emit as many VOCs into the environment, is biodegradable, and filters though nitrous oxide).
My first stop was Eco Design Resources in San Carlos, a showcase of environmentally friendly home products and green building. I found a big selection of wool carpets. But everything was too pricey. If I had made it big in a dot com, this place would definitely have furnished and decorated my entire home. The cheapest I found was $45-50/yard of wool carpet medium grade, uninstalled. This was too expensive for me.
Then I decided to go into a normal carpet store, called California Carpets in San Carlos. I walked in, and they had a ton of carpets to choose from. The sales agent was friendly and when I asked her for low VOC carpets, she quickly directed me to wool and gave me a lot of information on wool and its benefits, including a takeaway card. On sale, I found remnants of wool carpet for $40-$50/yard installed, a much better deal than Eco Design.
Finally, I walked into Home Depot just to check them out. They also had a ton of carpets, but when I went to their carpet specialist to ask for low VOC carpets, he had no idea of what I was talking about. He said he had stainmaster carpets, but didn’t understand what low VOCs were. That was too bad, because Home Depot had the cheapest selection of around $30/yard installed, but I had no clue to which ones were environmentally friendly. Talk about customer service!
I think I’ll probably go for California Carpets…it’s just too bad that the ecofriendly focused stores are so pricey, otherwise I would definitely support them.
3 comments
Hi, I maybe of help. I am also a carpet specialist at homedepot. The reason we don’t know about the Low VOC rated carpet is because this term is something new to the market. Think back, how old is this word or concept, it’s no different than looking for a no BPA on waterbottles. However, you should be looking for either a Beaulieu brand, more specifically “puresque carpet” or carpet made from 100% recycled matterials. We don’t have many but we do have them. All usually less than 30 dollars a square yard.
Wool is definately not your only option. Though wool has many wonderful eco-benefits, being rapidly renewable for instance, the price usually puts it out of most people’s price ranges. I have two recommendations for you.
One option you might want to consider if you are trying to be environmentally friendly is residential carpet tile. I know it sounds weird, but there is usually a ton of waste when installing traditional roll carpeting. Carpet tile reduces the waste drastically. Check out Simply Green (www.simplygreencarpet.com), I’m pretty sure all of their residential carpet tiles are low-VOC.
The other recommendation is that if you have your heart set on wool there is a manufacturer called Woolshire (www.woolshire.com). I work for a carpet store and our cost for their cheapest 100% wool product is in the mid teens… Of course you need to figure pad, installation, and mark up, but you do have less expensive wool options.
If you want true environmentally friendly carpet this is the best site to check out. VOC stands for volitile organic compounds and is not a new term to the industry. Natures carpet has been around since 1992 and wool has been the natural choice for carpet for thousands of years.
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