We believe that these facts are not widely understood and so wear warranties are somewhat misleading. What important factors are not covered by this definition of “wear”?
• Resilience • Appearance retention • Carpet structure and integrity • Ease and cost of maintenance • Technical Issues (static, fire, acoustic ratings, colour fastness, etc.) • Environmental issues (use of renewable resources, environmental manufacturing etc.) If assessed using the definition of “wear” stated in the warranties, there is no doubt that synthetic fibres are hard wearing. Compared to carpets manufactured from natural, staple fibres such as wool and, in tretford’s case, goat hair, the amount of shedding and fibre loss over the lifetime of, say a synthetic tufted carpet is less. For this reason, wear warranties are popular among the manufacturers of carpets made with synthetic face fibres, particularly BCF (bulk continuous filament) fibres. They successfully promote wear warranties as a measure, which should inspire specifier and end-user confidence in synthetic fibres. In reality they often distract attention from the real issues, i.e. what will the carpet look like after 5
