Reviews Mohawk Home Supreme Dual Surface Felted Rug Pad

The research

• Why use a carpet pad
• How we picked and tested
• Our pick: Mohawk Abode Supreme Dual Surface Felted Rug Pad
• Upgrade option: Durahold Plus Non Slip Rug Pad
• Also corking: Carpeting Pad The states Super Lock Natural
• The competition
• Sources

Why use a carpeting pad

Rug pads can help rugs stay put, provide cushioning, protect floors, and extend the life of a rug. You may not need a rug pad if your rugs already have a rubberized nonskid bankroll. For this guide, we focused on carpeting pads that can work on wood, tile, or other hard floors; we did not look at pads or tape intended for use on wall-to-wall carpeting.

Consider investing in a new rug pad if your current one won't stay put, or if you're interested in upgrading to something with better cushioning. If you've been using a cheap rug pad, like the thin felt ones sold at IKEA, you'll probably be surprised by how much a good pad improves the experience of your expanse rug. The carpet will slip less and experience much more cushioned underfoot. It's likewise a small investment with a potentially substantial return: For well-nigh $1 to $ii a foursquare foot, you tin add years to the life of your rug.

The pad should be smaller than your area carpet by ane to 2 inches on all sides, co-ordinate to carpeting pad makers and sellers. This ensures that the edges of the carpeting lie flat against the floor and don't become a tripping run a risk; it likewise reduces article of clothing and keeps the pad hidden. If you have a good-quality pad, you should non need any additional adhesives to hold it in place.

How we picked and tested

Photograph: Michael Hession

A nifty rug pad should take firm but supportive cushioning and keep a potent grip on both your rug and the floor; it should also fit the dimensions of your rug, and it should non impairment your floors over years of vesture. Rug pads can be fabricated from many materials, including PVC, rubber, felt, or memory foam. By and large, the all-time rug pads combine a layer of synthetic felt with natural-condom backing.

We primarily considered three types of carpet pad:

Felt and rubber: Our experts agreed that felt backed with rubber was superior to other pad types because the felt provides cushion underfoot while the rubber backing excels at gripping the flooring and preventing slips. Paul Iskyan, a rug good who cleans carpets for ABC Carpet & Home in New York, told us that felt density was more important than thickness in a carpeting pad, because a denser pad wouldn't flatten over fourth dimension like a less dense one might.

Felt: If you have a large area rug with heavy furniture on it, a felt-merely pad could be sufficient, but this type generally provides the least corporeality of grip.

Rubber mesh: Iskyan said he preferred felt-and-rubber pads for most uses, merely did concede that sometimes an all-rubber mesh pad would be necessary for areas with depression-clearance doors, or places that get wet oftentimes, such as outdoor areas. Mesh pads don't provide every bit much padding as felt pads, so your rugs will vesture more quickly with them. Many rubber-mesh pads are as well made with fillers like clay and sand, which tin can leave a powdery residue on the floor beneath your rugs, so it's best to seek out pads made of 100 percentage prophylactic. Iskyan told us yous should never buy a carpeting pad made from PVC, because information technology tin stain or discolor floors.

A expert rug pad tin can (and should) concluding for many years. Some come with ten- or twenty-year warranties, and many should easily outlive those. Stephanie Waterman, account manager for rug company Armadillo & Co, told us that "in many cases the pads outlive your carpet and tin can be easily cutting down and used again and once more." Since in that location was then much inconsistency in coverage, we decided a adept warranty was helpful, but not critical to finding a quality rug pad.

Some of our experts said that a adept rug pad should be made from felt then densely woven that it would be difficult to trim with home scissors. We generally agree with that advice, but we have institute that, in a compression, it's reasonable to trim a pad—especially a rubber-mesh pad or a thinner felt pad—downwardly to size.

With those criteria in heed, we searched for dual-layered, felt-and-rubber pads that ranked high on the websites of Amazon, West Elm, Crate and Butt, Pottery Barn, IKEA, Home Depot, and Wayfair. We didn't gear up a limit for thickness, simply it turned out that all the rug pads we considered were less than ⅓ inch thick—rug pads of that thickness are simply more pop than thicker pads. Nosotros too focused on nonslip pads, since nigh people buy rug pads to concord their rugs in place. After narrowing the field to fourteen options (11 felt-and-rubber, one all-felt, and three safe-only), nosotros prepare out to exam them.

We quickly noticed that many of the rug pads nosotros brought in looked almost identical. We eliminated those that were too glace on our cork floors or didn't feel cushiony plenty underfoot. Nosotros tried each mat with rugs of varying thickness and pile, and nosotros tested on hardwood floors in addition to cork. After narrowing downwards the grouping to our top five, nosotros asked a panel of testers to attempt them out.

In 2020, we did another search for new carpeting pads that may have become available since we published this guide. Finding no new models that fit our criteria, we opted to test our original three picks again to ostend that they were still every bit well-made every bit they were when we first tried them. We conducted tests similar to previous years, placing them on both concrete and hardwood floors and topping them with rugs of different thickness and pile. Our tests confirmed that our picks remain the best at providing cushion and skid-resistance.

Our selection: Mohawk Abode Supreme Dual Surface Felted Carpeting Pad

Photograph: Michael Hession

Our pick

We tested this ¼-inch-thick pad under apartment-woven and high-pile rugs, and found that it improved the feel of all of them by providing the almost substantial cushioning underneath our feet of any pad we tried. Our testers similarly liked the Mohawk Home because information technology was the most pleasant to stand up on in bare feet. Even though it offers springy cushioning, this pad's dense felt should concur its shape for years.

The Mohawk Home's grip was among the best we tested. Information technology didn't budge, no matter how much our testers shifted, tugged, or trod on information technology. In our at-abode test, it withstood a cat bounding dorsum and forth across information technology without sliding effectually or causing the rug to bunch upwardly. Wirecutter senior editor Christine Cyr Clisset has endemic this pad since 2015, and she told us that her flat-woven carpet did come up later on some clawing or play between her 2 cats, but that the pad itself never moved on her forest floors. Wirecutter staff writer Michael Sullivan uses the Mohawk under a large kilim rug in his living room and says it adds plenty of absorber only doesn't experience too bulky underneath a thinner rug.

This carpet pad is available in 25 sizes, including rectangular, square, and round options. Near people should be able to find the size they need without having to trim information technology further. The pad also comes with a one-year warranty confronting manufacturing defects. While that isn't the best warranty we found, we think it should exist fine for roofing any initial bug y'all may take with the pad.

Upgrade pick: Durahold Plus Not Sideslip Rug Pad

Photo: Michael Hession

Upgrade choice

The Durahold Plus Non Sideslip Rug Pad came highly recommended past adept Paul Iskyan. The top of the pad held on to a rug better than our main pick, and its denser felt will likely terminal longer. Merely considering information technology's roughly twice the price per foot compared with the Mowhawk, nosotros think the Durahold is worth the expense only for high-quality rugs. Our testers also constitute that this model'due south denser felt was slightly less cushiony underfoot.

At ⅓ inch thick, the Durahold is a bit thicker than our main option. In our tests, its safe lesser gripped forest and cork floor slightly better than our primary option, and none of the other carpeting pads we tested felt as immovable on the ground. At abode, we tested this pad in a kitchen, replacing an old rug pad that was notorious for slipping around and bunching up, and the Durahold didn't budge an inch in that high-traffic area. The diamond-shaped rut-pressed grooves in the felt elevation increment the pad's grip on rugs likewise. Our testers found that this design held more rugs firmly in place than the other felt-and-condom pads nosotros tried, and as one Wirecutter editor pointed out, the filigree pattern works well as a guide if you need to trim the pad yourself.

The Durahold is bachelor in xx sizes on Amazon, including round, half-circular, square, runner, and rectangular options. If y'all don't meet the size you need, or if you're looking for a custom-cut pad, you could try other Durahold-only retailers like this one. It also has a x-year limited guarantee honored through No-Muv, the maker of this pad, protecting against defects in workmanship or construction.

I've been using the Durahold pad under a rug in my entryway since the get-go of 2018, and it'southward one of the best rug pads I've owned. Even in a high-traffic area, information technology rarely shifts effectually on the floor, and it holds my carpeting securely in place. Plus, the thick cushioning feels great to walk on.

Other Wirecutter staffers have this pad too and generally like information technology. Senior staff author Kevin Purdy had a difficult time figuring out which pad would exist the right size for his sitting-room expanse rug, but says, "In terms of grip, it's great." Staff writer Michael Sullivan has a couple of small Durahold rug pads in his kitchen, though, and says his rugs sometimes sideslip around on the pad.

Also great: Rug Pad USA Super Lock Natural

Photo: Michael Hession

Too cracking

We're not big fans of thin rubber-mesh rug pads, simply they are necessary in sure cases, and some people only prefer them. If you have a low-profile door, or if y'all keep a carpeting outdoors or in a damp area, we recommend the Carpeting Pad USA Super Lock Natural carpet pad. We tested three mesh carpet pads, and this was the but 1 that explicitly advertised being fabricated of 100 percent natural rubber, rather than some other, rubberlike materials such as PVC. Although we've been unable to ostend the verbal materials in competing pads, some have received a number of complaints most their leaving behind sticky residue.

The Super Lock Natural as well has a denser structure than the other mesh pads we looked at, giving it more surface area to grip the flooring and a bit more than cushioning underfoot. A denser pad should also protect your rugs better from wear. Plus, this pad comes with the best warranty of any of the models we recommend: 20 years.

The contest

The IKEA Båring is sparse and available in merely one size, and when we opened it up it had a gluey coating that seemed liable to leave balance on any floor. We wouldn't want it in our home.

The Gorilla Grip and Epica mesh pads both had very loose "weaves," with a lot of space between the safe portions of the mesh. They provided significantly less grip than our mesh pick, and in the case of the Epica, made rugs feel somewhat uneven underfoot.

Sources

1. Miles McDonald, marketing manager, Carpet Pad USA, phone interview , January 22, 2018

2. Paul Iskyan, rug expert, ABC Carpet & Carpet Cleaning Service, phone interview , Jan 24, 2018

3. Stephanie Waterman, account manager, Armadillo & Co, email interview , January 31, 2018

4. SamRugPadMan, How to Choose Rug Pad Thickness, Carpeting Pad Corner , August 27, 2013

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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-rug-pads/

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