Carpet Terms & Carpet Piles Explained
Do you know your piles from your underlay? Then take a look at our handy guide here. Or click the image below.
Carpet terms
Carpet manufacturing involves many processes and the industry jargon can sometimes be a little overwhelming. Here is a useful list of terms with explanations of what they mean.
- 80:20
- The 80% wool/20% nylon mix developed by Brintons in the 1950s; the softness of wool combined with the strength of nylon creates the perfect carpet yarn.
- Administer
- Brintons is the world’s leading manufacturer of administers. Axminster is a weaving process that offers great pattern definition and therefore most administer carpets are patterned. to learn more about administer carpet construction click here.
- Berber
- Traditionally Berbers were made from natural-coloured wools, but what we refer to these days as a Berber is a heather with a ‘homespun’ appearance.
- Brinset
- Plain carpet is prone to show random shading effects beyond those you’d normally expect from foot traffic. Brintons developed the Brinset process, which is used during manufacture to eliminate the risk of these effects. Brinset guarantees against permanent random shading effects in domestic installations on all Brintons cut pile products for up to 2 years following the installation of the carpet.
- Heather
- Carpet yarn made from more than one fibre colour, giving a flecked, multicoloured effect.
- Pile
- The pile is the bit you stand on. ‘Total pile weight’ refers to the amount of yarn used to make the carpet. Deep pile carpets feel more luxurious, while more rows of yarn are harder-wearing.
- Tog
- Carpets and underlays can resist the transfer of heat to a lesser or greater degree and this “thermal resistance value” can be measured as a “tog” value. This is an important consideration when fitting carpet onto underfloor heating systems. For our complete list of tog values click here.
- Twist
- A type of carpet that uses yarn with a higher twist than usual, to create a textured surface.
- Velvet
- Staighter than twisted yarn, with the cut ends at the top, giving a soft, velvety surface.
- Wilton
- The oldest method of weaving, offering limited colour choice but a variety of textures. Ideal for producing textured plains. To learn more about wilton carpet construction click here.
- Woven
- A traditional process where the pile and backing yarns are woven together, offering unrivalled strength and stability. You can spot a woven carpet by the warp and weft threads on the reverse. Both Axminster and Wilton carpets are woven.
