Choosing the right caster is very important when shopping the furniture, especially chairs. Many people don’t know which caster suits their flooring and they feel confused between carpet casters vs hard floor casters. Both carpet flooring and hard flooring use different types of casters.
The main difference between carpet casters and hard floor casters is that carpet casters have a hard tread while hard floor casters are soft treaded. The hard tread lets the carpet caster easily roll over the carpet. While the soft-treaded casters are safe on the hard floor as they don’t cause scratches, scuff, etc.
Many people ignore caster-to-floor matching. If you choose a soft caster on the carpeted or rug floor, it will be bogged down or may even stuck in the high pile carpet. Similarly, if you use a hard caster on a hard floor, it will not perform well and also damages the floor.
Carpet Casters
Such a caster comes with long-lasting and hard treading to smoothly run over the carpet. The carpet casters are usually made of metal, hard nylon, polyurethane, polyethylene, hard rubber, etc. These casters come with larger diameters as they need to run over the high pile carpets.
Hard Floor Casters
Such casters come with a soft rubber tread and are made of materials like soft rubber, nylon, neoprene, urethane, etc. These casters smoothly work on hard floors like hardwood, tile floors, or laminate. Hard floor casters usually have fewer diameters compared with carpet casters.
Choosing the Right Casters
Carpet Casters
As we know the carpet has different types of piles. A carpet may have a thick, medium, or low pile.
The first step is to measure the carpet pile. For this, you need a carpet pile detector, a handy tool to measure the carpet thickness. Once you are assured of carpet thickness, go to a good quality seller and see the details of the carpet caster to better suit your carpet.
For a low pile carpet, you can easily use the hard floor casters too. On low-pile carpets, the hard floor casters even sometimes work better than carpet casters due to the low thickness of the carpet.
For medium and high pile carpets, you will need to use only carpet casters. The carpet casters with large diameters better suits such carpets. Usually, 3-4 inch diameters are routinely used sizes. Such casters don’t get stuck and smoothly roll over the carpet and rug pile.
The carpet casters should be of good quality and have smooth running. A broken caster is lethal for the carpet as it will ruin the carpet pile.
Hard Floor Casters
Hard floors like marble, ceramic tile, natural stone, hardwood, etc. have hard surfaces. On such hard surfaces, only soft-treaded casters are considered best. The soft casters provide smooth rolling without damaging the hard floor. These casters have great handling and don’t let the chair move quickly and dangerously.
If a hard treaded caster is used on a hard surface, it will cause a sudden dangerous movement and could be a risk of injury to the user. In addition, these casters are harmful to the floor.
Conclusion
We have discussed both carpet and hard floor caster in detail. It is recommended to always go for the right and high-quality casters as they not only provide smooth flow but are also helpful for carpet and hard floor safety.
