Carpet tile is the commercial carpet — offices, schools and healthcare standardized on it because one damaged square is replaced instead of the whole floor. Broadloom over a separate pad is the carpet for a house: softer, quieter, seamless, and the only one of the two this site puts forward for a home.
Installed cost includes material and professional labor. Ratings are relative across all 21 materials on this site, not absolute scores.
| Carpet Tile (Modular) | Nylon Carpet | |
|---|---|---|
| Installed cost per sq ft | $3.00–$9.50 | $4.00–$10.00 |
| Expected service life | 10–20 years | 10–20 years |
| Cost per sq ft per year | $0.42 | $0.47 |
| Durability | 4/5 | 4/5 |
| Water resistance | 3/5 | 2/5 |
| Comfort underfoot | 4/5 | 5/5 |
| Sound absorption | 4/5 | 5/5 |
| Ease of maintenance | 5/5 | 3/5 |
| DIY friendliness | 5/5 | 2/5 |
| Environmental profile | 4/5 | 3/5 |
| Traffic rating | Extreme | Heavy |
| Commercially rated | Yes | Yes |
The points that decide this in practice — not the spec sheet items that read well but rarely change anyone's mind.
One coffee spill, one burn, one dragged chair — lift the affected tile and drop in a spare from the attic stock ordered at bid. No re-stretching, no seams, no matching a discontinued roll. That arithmetic is worth a great deal across ten thousand square feet of office and very little across one bedroom.
Carpet tile has an integrated backing and installs directly to the subfloor, so there is no separate cushion. Broadloom over a good pad has noticeably more give and better acoustics, and the pad also extends the carpet life by absorbing traffic impact. Softness is the property a house buys carpet for, and it is the one the tile gives up.
The modular grid is visible in any light, and quarter-turn installation manages it without hiding it. It reads as an office because it is what offices have. Broadloom has seams wherever widths join, which a good installer places away from sight lines and traffic, and in a normal room they disappear.
An irregular open plan can waste 20 percent or more of roll goods, and tile cuts to fit with far less loss. Tile also lifts for access to floor boxes and raised-floor plenums, which is a real advantage in an office and no advantage at all in a house.
$3.00–$9.50 per sq ft installed, lasting 10–20 years — about $0.42 per sq ft per year.
A commercial product: order 5% attic stock at bid so a tile damaged years later still matches. For a house, broadloom over pad is the carpet this site recommends.
$4.00–$10.00 per sq ft installed, lasting 10–20 years — about $0.47 per sq ft per year.
If you buy one upgrade, make it solution-dyed nylon over a quality 8 lb pad. It costs roughly 15% more and routinely doubles usable life.
In a commercial building, better: it is built for traffic, easy to maintain and repaired a square at a time. In a house it is the wrong product — firmer without a pad, a visible grid, and a look that reads as an office. This site treats carpet tile as commercial only and does not put it forward for any room in a home.
It can be done and it rarely looks good, even in a commercial stairwell. Nosings and risers are exactly where the modular grid becomes obvious and where edges are most likely to lift underfoot. Stairs are the clearest case for broadloom, properly stretched and wrapped.
It looks like an office, which is the more precise objection. Higher-end tile with varied patterns has been marketed for basements and playrooms, and the grid still reads as commercial in every room of a house. Broadloom over pad is the residential carpet, and the fiber pages on this site rank the choices within it.
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