Eternity from Carpet Choice, good?

The 15 year guarantee is a sales ploy, and doesn't have much to do with serviceability!

The carpet will perform OK, but you will find the pile crushing in the traffic ways, and the resulting texture change will make these areas look different to untrafficked areas. Yeah, it has good stain resistance, but it ain't anywhere near as fantastic as the sales pitch suggests. Forgot the crap advice they give that you can or should use chlorine bleach on it. That is irresponsible nonsense (to put it mildly).

What rooms or areas is it to go into?

Ash.

Hi Parker,

You have chosen the carpet because YOU like it, and that's what matters really.

What is best depends on all sorts of criteria, and the type of living environment that it is to be installed into. Chances are that anything I may suggest as an alternative will cost more. One possible alternative within budget might be a stain release nylon (not solution dyed) like Stainmaster series.

The main difference you would find is the SDN has a harder, more course hand to it, and less resilience, whereas the SR nylon will be softer and more resilient. The downside is they don't have quite the level of stain resistance as the SDN.

Not sure if that helps.

Ash.

Hi Phoenix,

Any floorcovering should be chosen carefully for the specific service in which it is expected to perform. It's not easy to offer general advice that is always applicable, but I'll try to answer your points...

1. By 'gauge' I guess you mean the overall thickness of the carpet. In general terms, I suggest to buy lower profile, but dense pile carpets. Some folk like thick soft pile carpet because it feels luxurious. But these ultimately settle in traffic ways, creating valleys, and have a lot more room to collect and hold dust etc within the pile.

2. Not necessarily. All types of yarn used in carpets have their individual strengths and weaknesses. For example...
Wool is superior in many ways, including resilience, fire resistance, insulating qualities, appearance retention etc, etc. But wool requires more respect and care, as it is readily damaged by incorrect chemicals, and is more absorbant than synthetics, so can accept liquids and stain if not properly cleaned up. If cared for well, it can last many years and remain beautiful literally until it wears out.
Nylon yarns have evolved, and have various qualities that make them a popular choice, especially with young families. They generally have good resilience and stain resistance, and are less chemical sensitive than wool.
Polypropylene (also called olefin) is a cheaper yarn that is used in many lower cost carpets. It is a plastic yarn with almost no absorbency, so has excellent stain resistance, BUT performs poorly in many ways. It has poor resilience, is very heat sensitive and is oil loving, (so it soils rapidly in oily environments) It is often put into cheap rental properties.
Other yarns such as polyester and acrylic are quite uncommon these days.

There are literally thousands of choices when it comes to carpets, and there are many varieties beyond the type of face yarn. There are blends, different types of construction, colours, shades, weights, styles, backing materials, methods of installation, etc, etc, etc.

It pays to do your homework before buying, (and source reliable advice that far too often does NOT come from carpet salesmen). I normally suggest paying more for a quality installation, than the mediocre carpets that are so common these days, but that's just me!

Ash.

Awesome information in this thread
Thanks for royalblue for well thoughtout and detailed answers