Smartstrand carpet, impressed yet?

[Mikey P]

I own some, it's in our office where it gets lots of abuse from our 3 dogs, swivel chairs and foot traffic.
It's been down 3 years or so and still looks new. No stains, fading or texture distortion at all.

My land lord customers are switching over to it instead of olefin and the installers we refer love it as well


What are you seeing?


http://www.mohawkflooring.com/flooring-products/carpet/smartstrand.aspx/

 

[Mark Saiger]

So far liking it. Just put it in our house. Had a client spill red cherrywood stain on their new carpet. Year later showed up to clean carpet and were able to extract it out. It is very soft and the installer liked working with it. We installed a 57 ounce plush with a 10 pound pad. So far love it.

Mark Saiger

 

[Mikey P]

yep, very soft, you'd never know it was not nylon from the feel of it.

 

[randy]

Is it really made out of recycled plastic bottles ?

 

[Larry Cobb]

Mikey;

Some cleaners have seen excessive premature soiling on this new offering.

There was a board member who had the same issue.

We have done the correction below with our Detergent Free Powder spiked with Dynachem POG.

It should be something the mill can correct.

Larry

 

[Mikey P]

Like I mentioned a while back, when I cleaned this the first time, it took a long time to dry, suspected loom oil residue.

the next cleanings dried real quick.

perhaps that is the issue.

 

[The Great Oz]

The only difference from the 'old' polyester that I can see is that the manufacturers have stopped trying to make exact stitch-rate copies of builder's spec nylon plush and now pack the fiber in tight so it can't fall over. It sort of squats in the traffic lanes now, so the carpet construction may be the key to polyester fiber being a better end product.

 

[Jack May]

I'm starting to do a bit of warranty work here in New Zealand for Mohawk. Mainly fault rectifiaction, no cleaning yet, but they have asked about that side of things.

Mikey, I think the warranty will be voided in a rental premises, just so long as people know when they buy for that application and if you're referring, best you know too. If you are referring your clients to buy it, do you get them to get a CRI SOA company to maintain it too? Or has that part of the warranty been re written?

There may be different warranties, but thats what I took from reading it.

John

 

[joeynbgky]

We have been cleaning it for the last two years at a college student housing property...this stuff cleans up really really well. But only the dark color. The light or white barely cleans up at all... loving the darker colors.

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Ron Werner]

Doesn't this carpet also have an "odour" warrantee? I think it was this carpet where a client thought that I should be able to just "clean" out the urine her dog had left.

 

[billyeadon]

The fiber that is made from pop bottles is called PET while SmartStrand is called PTT which is more resilient. SmartStrand has about 37% of the fiber made from a corn polymer.

 

[Mikey P]

Im all too familiar with cleaning PET carpet.

I think smartstrand is awesome.

 

[hogjowl]

SmartStrand-Triexta/PTT is exclusively a Mohawk product. Naturally stain resistant like PET, but with durability, like a nylon. Nylon will bounce back when furniture has made indentions. Triexta will also bounce back, whereas PET won't. I was skeptical of SmartStrand at first, but over time it has proven to be a very good choice beside nylon.

You couldn't give me a polypropelene or a PET fiber carpet.

 

[ruff]

Is the stuff made from recycled bottles ("PET") nylon or is it something else?

 

[J Scott W]

Is the stuff made from recycled bottles ("PET") nylon or is it something else?

PET, the stuff that can be made from recycled pop bottles is polyester, not nylon.

 

[hogjowl]

PTT is described as a close cousin to PET, but it is different in some way that I have yet to see adequately explained. I have read where it is extruded differently, which I take to mean it is a continuous filament instead of staple with a high twist. I assume it gets it's soft feel from a finer denier.

 

[billyeadon]

Smart strand Silk is their new softer fiber. Yes it is a finer denier.

 

[Dmreed4311]

Here is the problem I have with this carpet, it crushes in the traffic area and you wont realize till you move out. I work for a high end apartment complex and they use smart strand,though they are more stain resistant than nylon(I can get the stains out of nylon) it flattens out in the traffic areas and creates greyed out areas from the way the light reflects. pile lifting is possible with nylon but not with polyester. The carpet is almost always replaced now after moveouts because of the switch to smartstrand, this carpet is being dubbed "one and done" by the apartment complexes that use them. They do clean well but even with all the stains out the flattened out traffic areas stand out like a sore thumb.
Has anyone seen this carpet on stairs? the edges become so flat it looks like straw.
The push is on by the carpet manufacturers because they make more money due to the low cost to make this stuff, I think long term customer disatisfaction of this carpet will be its downfall.

 

[Zee]

Here is the problem I have with this carpet, it crushes in the traffic area and you wont realize till you move out. I work for a high end apartment complex and they use smart strand,though they are more stain resistant than nylon(I can get the stains out of nylon) it flattens out in the traffic areas and creates greyed out areas from the way the light reflects. pile lifting is possible with nylon but not with polyester. The carpet is almost always replaced now after moveouts because of the switch to smartstrand, this carpet is being dubbed "one and done" by the apartment complexes that use them. They do clean well but even with all the stains out the flattened out traffic areas stand out like a sore thumb.
Has anyone seen this carpet on stairs? the edges become so flat it looks like straw.
The push is on by the carpet manufacturers because they make more money due to the low cost to make this stuff, I think long term customer disatisfaction of this carpet will be its downfall.

I see the same things happening. I personally hate all the polywhatever type carpets. Nylons are just better and more resilient. Some old (15-20 y/o) nylons still clean up good and look good in traffic lanes.

 

[Mikey P]

No crushing here, I could lift those mats and it would the same, 3 dogs on it all day long.

and yes, that is a pee pee spot.

 

[Steve in Omaha]

Here is the problem I have with this carpet, it crushes in the traffic area and you wont realize till you move out. I work for a high end apartment complex and they use smart strand,though they are more stain resistant than nylon(I can get the stains out of nylon) it flattens out in the traffic areas and creates greyed out areas from the way the light reflects. pile lifting is possible with nylon but not with polyester. The carpet is almost always replaced now after moveouts because of the switch to smartstrand, this carpet is being dubbed "one and done" by the apartment complexes that use them. They do clean well but even with all the stains out the flattened out traffic areas stand out like a sore thumb.
Has anyone seen this carpet on stairs? the edges become so flat it looks like straw.
The push is on by the carpet manufacturers because they make more money due to the low cost to make this stuff, I think long term customer disatisfaction of this carpet will be its downfall.

Can't speak to the apartment situations, however, have seen a few instances in the residential arena exactly as you stated. It's good, maybe just not the holy grail of broadloom. Nylon rocks!

 

[randy]

Exactly ! Why all the effect to improve on Nylon ? There has to be a logic reason for this , right ?

 

[Mikey P]

Cheaper?, bleach proof?, more fade resistant? Rhino turd proof?

 

[carpetcleaner]

It just doesn't seem to hold up on stairs. It untwists 1/2" - 1" at the edge. I'm fairly sure that it is Smartstrand.

 

[Steve in Omaha]

Cheaper?, bleach proof?, more fade resistant? Rhino turd proof?

cheaper.....ding ding ding

 

[Dolly Llama]

SmartStrand has about 37% of the fiber made from a corn polymer.

Wonder how the drought will effect prices??


Side note.....the farmers here will do well this year
we're in drought conditions too, but the beans and corn fields look amazingly well compared to most other areas of the country
With prices sure to be high, they'll be rolling fat at harvest time



LTA

 

[Dmreed4311]

I did a carpet yesterday at one of my apartment complexes that use smartstrand, it was trashed and I pulled out the rotovac used my high Ph cleaner and worked a miracle on it, I could have done a before and after and it would have been impressive. Well it will be replaced today because of that damn five foot area right in front of where the couch was, it is crushed and slightly grey compared to the rest of the carpet. Sucks but they want perfect and when they were using Nylon they replaced about half of the carpets they do now.
The main thing Iam noticing since they switched to smartstrand is that the carpets always look more soiled than the nylons did, I think this is because polyester bonds with oil and grease but with nylon it does not. A good example of this was when I went to the movies after church a while back and I was wearing polyester pants and when i got home i had popcorn oil stains all over my pants from the oil penetrating through the bag. those pant were ruined because those stain would not come out even after taking them to the dry cleaners.

 

[hogjowl]

I did a residential job yesterday that had a two year old Smartstrand in it. This was the first cleaning. No obvious wear or staining conditions to be seen and I wondered why she had it cleaned. It looked like new. She told me she spilled a bucket of kool-ade powder on it and had to pour hot water on the spot and suck it up with a wet-dry vac to get rid of it. It came out completely, but she wanted me to clean anyway, just in case.

Maybe in another two years I'll start to see the things you guys are complaining about.

 

[hogjowl]

bump

I just got back from an estimate of a large two story house with 2 kids and a dog. 1863 s.f. of smartstrand carpet installed in 2008 (if memory serves). No visable soiling and almost no wear. I did see some wear in the upstairs hallway at a pivot point. I am more and more impressed with this fiber/carpet the more I see it. You can almost clean this stuff with hot water.

 

[steve g]

I looked at some at my carpet suppliers its very soft, however the stuff costs just as much if not more than a comparable nylon carpet. my supplier has some instock stuff they bought in bulk that is nylon that they sell for substantially less than smart strand. unless the stuff is less money than nylon I don't get the hype