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Carpet Shedding: Vacuum Bags Full of Fuzz
At Floor Central, we received the following explanation of shedding from a carpet manufacturer. This is one of the best explanations of shedding I have come across. This is suggested reading for both industry personnel and carpet consumers.
Carpet Shedding
With all the styles we make using staple yarns this explains why (to some extent) we receive so many claims for shedding. Many times these claims are given birth as the point of sale because the consumer is not aware or is not made aware of the normal shedding characteristics of staple yarn. Fortunately, our experiences with the many (many) samples that have been submitted to us for shedding has shown that the vast majority of these claims are not valid, the shedding being experienced is well within the normal range for staple, and in many cases is so slight that the very though of submitting a claim has to be questioned.
Shedding (vacuum cleaner canisters and bags filling with fuzz) is a major complaint we see. A few years ago I received the following explanation of shedding from a carpet manufacturer. This explanation is as true today as it was then.
Shedding occurs when sheared fiber that has not been removed during the vacuuming process (after shearing) work their way out of the now installed carpet by traffic and vacuuming. We also see shedding as a result of individual staple fibers that have been spun together, when an infinitesimal amount of fiber that was not captured in the latex yarn bundle slip from the twist yarn. Consider this: If you have a 2-ply staple yarn constructed carpet you could have as many as 300 individual filaments of yarn in a single tuft! If only one (1) filament slipped from each tuft as a result of normal shedding, imagine the amount of shedding that could occur in a typical 12′ x 20′ room! Perhaps you can better understand this if you consider, for example, that a typical 1/10 gauge cut-pile carpet has approximately 103,680 tufts in one square yard of carpet!
Shedding with carpets of staple yarn construction poses no danger of excessive fiber loss, it is not a defect, and it will stop in time! The time required for shedding to stop will be based on how often the carpet is vacuumed, how thoroughly the carpet is vacuumed, and how effective the vacuum model is (models with roller brushes and adjustable pile height settings work best), and how heavy the carpet’s pile is (the heavier the style the longer it will take to remove those fibers that will eventually shed. Dealers and consumers should be told that shedding may last up to a year! They should also understand that because shed fiber that has been captured by vacuuming has been “fluffed” in the process, the amount of fiber contained in the vacuum bag often appears to be significantly greater in amount then what was actually been removed. And the common sense thing to do when this is observed is to clean (or exchange) the vacuum bag to prevent overloading the vacuum cleaner.
This information should equip you to better respond to clams for shedding, and help dealers and consumers understand that this is a normal condition and its occurrence does not indicate that a carpet is defective.
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April 22nd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
[...] Dawn wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAt Floor Central, we received the following explanation of shedding from a carpet manufacturer. This is one of the best explanations of shedding I have come across. This is suggested reading for both industry personnel and carpet … [...]
May 15th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAt Floor Central, we received the following explanation of shedding from a carpet manufacturer. This is one of the best explanations of shedding I have come across. This is suggested reading for both industry personnel and carpet … [...]