How to Tell What Your Carpet Is
Three checks, none of which require anything you do not have.
- Feel it. Wool is soft, slightly springy and recovers when you press it. Polypropylene feels harder and more plastic, and stays flattened longer
- Look at the label or the offcut, if either survives. An 80/20 marking means 80% wool, 20% synthetic — the standard blend
- Look at what the moths have done. Larvae eat only the animal fibre. On a wool-mix that produces thinning rather than a clean hole, because the synthetic threads are left behind
The wool-mix signature. An area that looks worn, sparse and faded rather than eaten through, often with the backing showing faintly. The larvae have removed the wool and left the nylon skeleton standing. It is very easy to mistake for wear.
What This Changes About the Damage
- Pure wool — larvae can graze right down to the backing, and holes are possible. Damage is obvious once you see it
- Wool-mix — damage looks like premature wear. It is slower to become obvious and is usually noticed later, which means more of it
- Fully synthetic — no damage to the pile at all, whatever else is happening in the room
The middle case is the one that gets missed. If a patch of carpet looks worn where nothing walks, that is not wear.
Can It Be Repaired?
Patching
The usual answer. A damaged section is cut out and replaced with matching carpet, ideally from an offcut kept after fitting. If there is no offcut, a fitter can often take a piece from inside a fitted wardrobe or from under a permanent piece of furniture.
On a plain carpet a good fitter can make it close to invisible. On a patterned one the join is harder to hide.
Re-tufting
For a small area, a specialist can insert new tufts of matching yarn into the backing. It works well on a contained patch and is not practical over a large one.
When it is not worth repairing
- Several separate damaged areas in one room
- Damage in a doorway or the middle of a traffic path, where a patch will wear differently and show
- Backing or underlay affected as well as the pile
- A carpet already near the end of its life
Treat first, repair second, always. New wool put into a carpet with an active infestation is new food in the middle of the problem.
Prevention
- Move one heavy item every few months and look underneath — rotate which one. That is the whole early-warning system
- Vacuum the carpet edges against the skirting, not just the middle, and empty the vacuum outside
- Check anything wool coming into the house: rugs, second-hand furniture, boxes out of storage
- Store woollens clean and sealed rather than loose in a wardrobe
- Look at the underlay if you ever have a carpet lifted for any reason
- Keep the offcut from any new carpet — it costs nothing and it is what makes an invisible repair possible years later
Treatment starts from £220. If you are unsure whether what you are looking at is wear or damage, photograph it, mark the edge in pencil with the date, and look again in a month.
Carpet moths in Bracknell? Pest Services Berkshire treats carpet moths from £220. Carpet Moth Control in Bracknell has the full detail, or call 0118 336 1366.