Frieze or Berber Carpet

[Chris2597]

We are trying to decide on new carpet for the staircase and bedrooms. We have narrowed it down to berber or Frieze. The Frieze is very thick and tightly twisted. We have had berber in another house. I liked the berber look and it wore like iron but wasnt very luxurious. Any thoughts?

 

[ChristmasElf]

Berber on stairs
Frieze in the bedrooms

Stairs get heavier traffic and Berber can hold up to that. The frieze on the stairs will look matted down within a year with foot traffic.



Ask me how I know this! ; )

 

[RadioNate]

Frieze - but I hate berber.

 

[wdwmom2]

I would normally say not Berber. It wears well, but I personally do not like the look. Well, that was until last fall.

We were flooring shopping for the 1st floor of our home. Carpet was going in to 2 of the rooms. We finally chose a beautiful loop cut loop (I believe that is what it may be called) patterned carpet for these rooms. The wear rating was excellent on the carpet. It is made by Shaw. During the picking out process I had repeatedly turned the sample over and read the info on the back. It wasn't until later that I picked up on the word "Berber". I would have NEVER have thought it was Berber carpet. It doesn't have that rough look and feel that I associate with Berber. Feels wonderful underfoot.

So now I have a new appreciation for Berber, and that is what I would choose.

 

[indimom]

Berber on stairs
Frieze in the bedrooms

Stairs get heavier traffic and Berber can hold up to that. The frieze on the stairs will look matted down within a year with foot traffic.



Ask me how I know this! ; )

I agree. We have frieze in DD's bedroom and it holds up well, but I don't think it would on stairs. We had berber in our last house, and it held up fabulously on the stairs and high traffic areas.

 

[RNMOM]

I had my whole house in berber and replaced it two years ago with Shaw high end cut pile. I hate it. It has shown the wear already and of course we are still waiting for "prorated" offer of settlement. It also always looks dirty.

I had a berber that had fine speckles of color with a light tan background and it never looked dirty. I wish I still had my berber.

 

[tweedlemom]

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I thought you said "Bieber" carpet! I was wondering why anyone would want Justin Bieber carpeting!!!!

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I had my whole house in berber and replaced it two years ago with Shaw high end cut pile. I hate it. It has shown the wear already and of course we are still waiting for "prorated" offer of settlement. It also always looks dirty.

I had a berber that had fine speckles of color with a light tan background and it never looked dirty. I wish I still had my berber.

That is interesting. We will need carpet in these rooms before we sell. I might look into a Berber.

I always thought that Berber did not hold up well, that it snags. We had a frieze in one of our houses that we loved.

 

[golfgal]

In the second house we owned there was berber carpet in the KITCHEN. Now, normally I wouldn't like carpet in the kitchen but it sure was a heck of a lot easier to vacuum up after 3 kids then it was to mop . When we sold that house the carpet was at LEAST 15 years old and still looked brand new. People kept commenting on the "new carpet" in the kitchen.

We now have a berber in our family room that is 16 years old and still looks new. It is an off-white with speckles of color and never looks dirty. We have plush carpet in most of the rest of the house that NEEDS to be replaced.

We put in a patterned berber in our dining room about 4 years ago and I just love it in there. Depending on what we do with the stairs, we may put the same on our stairway down the road.

We had frieze carpet in our bedroom in our old house and I REALLY liked it in there. I would NOT have wanted it on the stairway. We had a runner on our stairway in our old house. It was a Shaw runner that looked like an oriental carpet. That was the BEST thing to have on the stairs. It didn't show any dirt and with the low pile it didn't crush.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

What about dirt and mud on the Berber? I have 2 dogs and as much as I like to wipe their feet sometimes they get by me and I have a mess to clean up like yesterday.

It was 4:30 in the morning, I did not check their paws. One of them must of gotten into a muddy area because when we look at the middle of the living room later there was MUD. UGH.

How do you clean Berber? Can you use a carpet cleaner on it?

 

[wdwmom2]

I had my whole house in berber and replaced it two years ago with Shaw high end cut pile. I hate it. It has shown the wear already and of course we are still waiting for "prorated" offer of settlement. It also always looks dirty.

I had a Berber that had fine speckles of color with a light tan background and it never looked dirty. I wish I still had my berber.

Unfortunately, we already had to test out our Shaw Berber clean ability. DH drives an 18-wheeler for a living. Occasionally he brings home axle grease on his shoes. It is the thickest, blackest, mess of a grease that I can imagine.

Well, probably not even a month after we had it installed, he tracked some into our home on the new carpet!!!! Nice little coal black tread marks all over the carpet. He got out the Greased Lightening and a damp sponge. It came out much easier than he expected it to. I was worried with the scrubbing he was doing that it might leave some kind of wear mark. Nope, still looks like brand new carpet!!! We figured if we can get axle grease out of it, there's not much else to worry about!

 

[Music City Mama]

I had this dilemma last summer -- but for stairs and playroom/office. I liked the look of Berber better, but I was worried about the rough feeling. I did my research and figured it was best to go with 100% nylon (or wool) vs. olefin or a blend. I have a tan/speckled nylon Berber and I love it. It's very soft (we also got a quality carpet pad, so that helps) and has worn very well so far. Even though my kids play very hard in the room, I don't know if it would hold up so well with pets (we don't have any) -- I do think their nails could snag it.

With that said, I don't know if I'd like Berber in the bedroom. When I was carpet shopping last year, there was a high cut-pile (almost resembled Frieze), but not so shaggy looking. And it was speckled which I thought was cool -- I had previously only seen Berber or Friezes that were speckled -- so, that's what I have in mind for whenever we do the bedrooms in a few years.

 

[golfgal]

What about dirt and mud on the Berber? I have 2 dogs and as much as I like to wipe their feet sometimes they get by me and I have a mess to clean up like yesterday.

It was 4:30 in the morning, I did not check their paws. One of them must of gotten into a muddy area because when we look at the middle of the living room later there was MUD. UGH.

How do you clean Berber? Can you use a carpet cleaner on it?

Yes, you can use carpet cleaner on it but I have found just a damp rag works just fine for muddy paw prints.

 

[mickeysgal]

We have a Berber on our stairs and upper floor. With the teenagers here, it has held up well. It makes me nuts (really nuts!!) to see crushed carpeting or traffic patterns in rugs. We have a frieze in our bedroom. It has not done as well as the berber. It doesn't clean up as well, it shows traffic patterns, etc. That said, Mohawk carpets have a new kind of fiber out that they've tested in a rhino (1 rhino) cage and again with 6 elephants at zoos. Live cameras, etc. I remember that the rhino test was done at a zoo in Alabama - don't remember where the test with the elephants was done. Everything was done to these carpets and at the end of the experiment, it cleaned up perfectly with no crushing or staining. If it's good enough for the rhinos and elephants, it's good enough for me. It's going to be my next carpet in our bedroom/stairs/upper floor. It's called SmartStrand...it's a fiber and comes in a lot of styles, cuts, etc. Google it. Here is info on it. Simply amazing. Watch the video on the link.

http://www.mohawkflooring.com/2010-smartstrand-zoo-challenge/default.aspx

 

[tiggger1]

the problem with have with our Berber is that the cats claws destroyed it. and they are not even scratching it. its when they get to a certain length the start picking up the loops and then it we get a pull...I imagine its worse with a dog.

Its easy to clean though...except when I need to wash it...it doesnt wash too easily

 

[The Mystery Machine]

the problem with have with our Berber is that the cats claws destroyed it. and they are not even scratching it. its when they get to a certain length the start picking up the loops and then it we get a pull...I imagine its worse with a dog.

Its easy to clean though...except when I need to wash it...it doesnt wash too easily

Now see that is a deal breaker for us. One of our dogs rubs on the carpet and I imagine she would kill it.

Thanks for the mohawk link, mickeysgal. That was pretty cool. I wonder if it is true because that would be the carpet we would need.

http://www.mohawkflooring.com/2010-smartstrand-zoo-challenge/default.aspx

 

[mickeysgal]

Thanks for the mohawk link, mickeysgal. That was pretty cool. I wonder if it is true because that would be the carpet we would need.

http://www.mohawkflooring.com/2010-smartstrand-zoo-challenge/default.aspx

I believe it to be true. They had live cameras on it that you could view...I was "friends" with Ricko the Rhino on Facebook during that challenge because the concept was so interesting to me. When they again tested it with 6 elephants, it put to rest the question of wear/tear on traffic/crushing. Intesting, isn't it? My concerns with any carpet is will it crush, show traffic, and will it clean up perfectly. Looks like this is a good carpet option to consider. Have no idea as to the cost though. I would imagine that it will vary as to style.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I believe it to be true. They had live cameras on it that you could view...I was "friends" with Ricko the Rhino on Facebook during that challenge because the concept was so interesting to me. When they again tested it with 6 elephants, it put to rest the question of wear/tear on traffic/crushing. Intesting, isn't it? My concerns with any carpet is will it crush, show traffic, and will it clean up perfectly. Looks like this is a good carpet option to consider. Have no idea as to the cost though. I would imagine that it will vary as to style.

Thanks for bringing to my attention. It might as well be a "zoo" in my house. We wear our shoes and we have a backyard that is frequently muddy. With 2 dogs it is so hard to even try to keep the carpet perfect.

Right now we have 3yo builders grade carpet which is pretty much trashed.

I will pass this to my sister. She needs new carpeting as well and they are shoe wearers too.

 

[m&m's mom]

I absolutely loved the Berber in our old house. We put it in new and 7 years later put the house up for sale.
Well DD who was 3 ate a lot of those colored Goldfish and proceeded to bring them right back up. As I was running her to the bathroom, the colored Goldfish were making a trail across my house. DH immediately got out the carpet cleaner and it got most of it up but the dye stain was not coming out. I literally had a "For Sale" sign outside my house. I heard that you could put bleach on Berber and I was desperate so I diluted some bleach and tried it. Perfect! The stain came out immediately but the carpet, and the color flecks in it, were not affected at all! I was sooo happy!
When I replace the carpet in our new house the only thing that will keep me from getting berber is that we have a new cat that likes to scratch at the carpet and that will NOT work w/ berber.

 

[Chris2597]

We found that the berber we had in our home wore like iron too....We put it in and sold the house 5 yrs later and it still looked like new. I like the Freize but I think i would get sick of it. I am going to start looking for a tight berber sort of oatmeal colored with flecks in it...My daughter put berber in her house. She got a huge snag which unraveled a section....we didnt have this problem but the carpet person said that is a common occurence with berber....