Dust & Carpets

[Simon Anderson]

I am about to get new carpets down in my house which has been a building site for the last 6 months. The house is very old and on the ground floor the floors are at least 3 feet off the ground with in some instances farily big gaps around the floorboards. On the 1st & Ground floor there has been a lot of dirt and debris on the boards and has fallen down into the cracks. Whilst I have hoovered and mopped about 10 times in each room I am pretty confident there is still a lot of dust there and it will no doubt start to rise and show on our carpets.

I have had a couple of thoughts on how to reduce the dust coming through on the carpets and was looking for advise.

Do I put down a load of newspaper and tape it all together and tape close to the edges around the room so that the floor is virtually sealed.

Or in work we have large lengths of a heavy clear plastic used for very robust plastic bags. I could cut this up and tape it together but this is obviously in no way breathable. Is this not a good idea given the fact houses are meant to breathe and that there are air bricks below the floor level on the ground floor and this could result in trapping moisture etc...

Which if any is the best option and is there anything else that people out there can suggest.

Cheers.

 

[Alastairreid]

4-6mm plywood.

 

[ibby]

or pull up the floorboards and vacum underneath

 

[crazydaze]

A flooring product called Paperfelt will do the perfect job of sealing the room areas, plus most underlays taped together will be backed and less likely to allow dust to travel through them anyway creating a double seal as such.

The area you will have issues with is all round the edges, the best thing you can do is fit the skirtings tight to the floor and run a bead of silicone sealant around the bottom edges before gripper and carpet are fitted. The downside to this is that a) houses are supposed to 'breath' allowing air to circulate in these areas and you will be restricting this movement and b) if (and you will) you miss a bit, the discolouring from the dust will be more pronounced as the draft will be stronger in the area than if the room was 'breathing' from all skirting areas.

If the doors are a cut too high, air movement under the doors often discolurs the leading edge of the carpet in the door way, best if the doors very lightly brush the carpet when the carpet is new to limit the air space under the door.

 

[Alastairreid]

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