Walk on wool — a pile of comfort

Press, 26 April 1979, Page 13

Walk on wool — a pile of comfort

The New Zealand Wool Board has taken the guesswork out of buying a carpet by introducing Woolmark Quality Code. It's designed especially for the home-owner, and is a shorthand code to describe the quality and performance of a pure wool carpet.

Five categories, ranging from “Decorative” to “Heavy Duty,” with explanatory symbols, tell you what sort of a carpet you’re thinking of buying. It’s all there on the stickon labels, on the underside of every worthwhile pure wool carpet.

The full Woolmark Quality Code is — (1) Decorative, for the master bedroom and lounge; (2) Light Duty, for guest room and study; (3) Medium Duty, for lounge and living-room of average two-child families; (4) Heavy Duty, lounge and living-room for large and active families; (5) Heavy Duty (including stairs) for

stairs and other heavvtraffif areas in domestic areas. Every carpet wool is loomed for a specific function in a home or business area. Retailers and manufacturers want to help you to find the type of carpet that best fits your needs. So before you do anything else, soft out your travel patterns and rates of usage. How many people use the room? What kind of people, a quiet family, messy toddlers, rowdy teen-agers or a regular flow of visitors? What parts of the room are used most? Allow for the fact that stairs are especially demanding, and that turning areas wear

more quickly than straight walking areas. The Carpel will be there for a long time, so try not to compromise on quality. If your family really needs a heavy-duty carpet, don’t feel it’s a luxury. Some of the plainer heavy-duty code carpets cost less than fancy medium-duty textures. Seek your retailer’s help. He is a specialist with long experience, and the Woolmark Quality Code is based on 17 correlated tests, the outcome of 10 year’s floor trials and research by the International Wool Secretariat. It’s there for your protection. Look for it next time.