Why is Underlay Important?

Underlay acts as a cushion between the carpet and the sub-floor; choosing the correct underlay for the correct installation is important. There are many benefits from using a high-quality underlay.

1. Underlay is excellent insulation and old underlay will not have the same TOG value and in this era of energy saving good insulation is more important than ever.
2. Underlay prolongs the life of your new carpet, once it’s expired then the acceleration of wear will become more obvious especially in high traffic areas
3. Underlay also acts as a sound insulator therefore a good density will help with reducing sound travelling between floors.
4. Underlay makes all the difference for the overall feel of your new carpet even more than the new carpet itself, you will not fully appreciate how little your old underlay is offering you until you change it. 

We like to demonstrate the different underlays we offer along with the carpet samples and actively encourage our customers to take their shoes off to test the differences to enable them to make educated decisions once they’ve received their estimate. 

PU Underlay versus rubber underlay?

PU stands for Polyurethane, which is a type of foam used, for example, in seating/cushions for your car, home furnishings and even in the aviation industry. Any left-over foam that used to go to landfill is shredded and upcycled into Carpet Underlay whereas the blown waffle style rubber underlay is, of course, oil based. The PU has been very popular for over 15 years, it feels nicer, lasts longer, is a greener product, weighs less and does not disintegrate into a hazardous powder like the old rubber ones do such that we run the PU underlays as a standard.

Our underlay

Ball & Young are best known for producing quality underlays and continue to win many awards for Best New Product since the launch of their flagship underlay ‘Cloud 9’ launched over 25 years ago. All Ball & Young’s underlays pass the British Standards BS EN 14499:2015 and we chose to typically hold as standard the Cloud 9 range, mostly the Cirrus 9mm and Cumulus 11mm but also a budget 8mm Cosi version too. Cheaper underlays on the market are created by pumping a minimal amount of PU foam with air to create the depth however once air has been pushed out from walking over it then it does not recover and will flatten and not perform as it should very quickly rather than a high quality underlay that will recover and keep going for a good number of years along with your new carpet.

Underlay and Underfloor Heating 

You can still have carpet and underlay with underfloor heating, but this time we do not want to insulate the floor, we want to allow the warm air to be able to pass through the underlay, so the lower the Tog rating, the better. A combined TOG rating of 2.5 of both underlay and carpet will enable the heating to be effective whilst still having the softness and luxury of carpet where you’d like it.