What is the Best Carpet to Buy? Vol#3 Twist

"What is the best carpet to buy?" is a question that can not be answered, or at least will not have the same answer for everyone. When I began my career as a carpet salesman I received some great advice from a good friend and mentor Glen Matton of Deacon Flooring in London On. He said "Don't always sell the customer what they want, you should sell them what they need!" Oh??? I said?? "You wouldn't sell a loose looped carpet to a customer with a bunch of cats because the consumer likes that particular carpet, the cats will destroy it in no time!" he said. That was great advice from a great guy, and since then I do my best to sell customers on products that better fit their needs while certainly still respecting their wants. If you are a serious capet consumer do yourself a favor a read my next few blog posts, so that when shopping for a new carpet, you not only purchase what you want in a carpet but also what you need in a carpet.

Over the next week or so we will be posting about carpet to hopefully educate you on what is the best carpet to buy FOR YOU! 

Vol #3 Twist
A carpets twist is in my opinion is the third most important thing to look for when purchasing a carpet, however often times a customer does not even know about the importance of a twist. Most carpet consumers think the weight or the pile is most important mainly because that is what some uneducated big box store carpet sales person told them. The truth is weight and pile are important features in a carpets construction, however in my opinion the first thing to look at is Vol#1 Style  the second being Vol#2 Fiber and the third is the Twist. The twist of a carpet is not relevant in a loop constructed or berber style carpet because of the way berber is made differently from plush or frieze style carpets, however you should already know this if you have read Vol#1 Style.To me the twist is oh so very important to a carpets quality because the twist of a carpet is what makes the carpet stand up right, if that twist is loose or unravels the carpet will (wear) or fall down and look matted. The twist in a carpet is very similar to the twist in a hair braid, the tighter the braid the more braids you get and the stronger that braid is.
This will likely be the shortest and easiest blog post in the

The twist is often rated in carpet stores as TPI and it stands for Turns Per Inch. It is quite simple really the TPI is the number of times the carpet fiber is twisted in an inch. Some companies don't advertise their TPI however it is easy for you the customer to see if a carpet has a good number of twists to it or not. This is one of the reasons Frieze Style carpet is my favorite style, the carpet is longer allowing the carpet manufacturer to twist the carpet more times, which in turn makes frieze wear so well even when made out of a Phenix Flooring PET Polyester fiber.

If you read Vol#2 Fiber you will see the Stainmaster Nylon is my favorite fiber and I mostly explained why, however I left out gauge. The gauge of a carpet strand is how thick the strand in the twist is and the thinner the strand the better. Why? Because the thinner the strand the more times it can be twisted also allowing for more carpet material to be place in the carpet. Similar to linen sheets thread count, the smaller the thread the more material gets into the sheet creating better performance. Nylon carpet can be made much thinner than a PET or PTT creating a much higher quality product.

So if you are looking for that thick plush carpet that so many people are these days, spread the carpet with your fingers, count the twists and pick the highest number. If you purchase a plush Stainmaster nylon carpet with a high TPI and you clean your carpet regularly, you will have a beautiful plush carpet for years to come!
If you are looking for the Frieze or short shag, the TPI is still very important so do yourself a favour and be sure to count those twists!