A lot of things change over time, but it’s not often that you see things actually begin to change back to the way that they once were. Well, that’s what’s happening to weight room flooring these days, and I think it’s actually a pretty positive thing.
Let me explain – for years we’ve been trying to convince people to get carpeting out of their CV areas and replace it with rubber. There are a lot of problems with commercial carpeting in a weight room. It absorbs sweat, it stains easily from oil used to lubricate the machines, as well as spills, it’s hard to clean, and the cleaning process tends to actually shorten the lifespan of the carpet. Worse is that commercial carpet tended to release small fibers that would get into the lubricating oil in the machines, and this would create more wear and shorten the life of these expensive pieces of CV equipment. The best answer to this was to put down equipment mats under every piece of equipment that you had. At that point, why not replace the carpet with solid rubber flooring, which had none of these problems?
Of course, rubber flooring does not have all the aesthetic qualities of carpet. There just isn’t the design flexibility with rubber that there is with carpet.
But, in the last few years, a new type of carpeting has been developed, that allows you the design flexibility without the problems of earlier carpeting. This material does not use a woven fabric, but rather a polypropylene plastic fiber that is needle punched through an asphalt backing. This makes for a carpet that is actually completely anti-microbial and unable to stain or mildew. It also eliminates the fraying and occasional “zippering” that you would find with a woven carpet, and does not allow the release of those small fibers that get into your equipment. Additionally, it does not indent from having heavy equipment placed on it. But aesthetically, it looks the same as a woven carpet.
So, you see that over the years, we’ve encouraged people to take out their carpet in favor of rubber, and now we’re back to carpet again. A new and better suited carpet, that is. We call ours CarpeTile Sport and it’s warranted for a full seven years. If you’re remodeling your CV area, it’s a great choice to consider….again. viagra