How To Protect Your Carpet From Your Office Chair

If you’ve invested a lot of money into the carpet at either the office or your home workspace, the last thing you want is to damage it with your office chair wheels. Unfortunately, with improper care, your carpet may end up slightly damaged or with excess wear and tear – especially if you use your office chair every day.

In this article, Furniture At Work explains the best methods on how to protect your carpet from your office chair.

How do office chairs damage the carpet?

Rolling office chairs cause harm to your carpet in several ways and this can look unsightly. Plush or shaggy carpets are particularly at risk of damage from office chair wheels. The weight and friction placed on the carpet by the chair and its wheels can cause the fibres to wear thin – resulting in a patchy, worn-looking carpet.

Additionally, your chair can harbour dust and grime within the wheels if not cleaned regularly, which can muddy your carpet. This can eventually become embedded in the threads, making it much harder to clean in the long run.

How to protect your carpet from your office chair wheels

There are several ways to protect your carpet from your office chair – leaving it looking fresh and clean for longer. These methods include:

Using an office chair mat

Arguably one of the most effective yet least expensive solutions to carpet damage, an office mat removes the impact of the constant movement and overall friction to the flooring when you sit your chair on top of it. Not only does an office mat provide a layer of protection against general wear and tear – it also prevents spillages from getting onto and staining your carpet.

You will also find that using an office chair mat makes manoeuvrability much easier, as the wheels will glide across the mat instead of potentially snagging on the carpet.

Check out the chair mat range available at Furniture At Work today.

Using furniture coasters for chairs without wheels

If you have a static office chair that didn’t come with wheels originally, it would be useful for you to invest in furniture coasters that will reduce the impact of the feet on your carpet. These furniture coasters are small disks made of either rubber or plastic that can be placed on the feet of your chair to minimise the pressure put on your carpet.

Using chair casters suitable for carpets

A chair caster is a wheeled contraption that you can attach to each of your chair legs, and this will ultimately reduce friction by allowing your office chair to roll more easily. For carpeted floors, it’s best to choose a caster made of nylon, metal, or polyurethane coating – these materials are most compatible with the threads and fibres.

Keeping your chair clean and regularly maintained

When an office chair is used every day, a build-up of dirt, grime, and bacteria can quickly occur, and this can spread to your carpet. However, with regular cleaning, this doesn’t have to be the case. Depending on your office chair of choice, you’ll likely have specific instructions on how to clean the material/chair model from the manufacturer. Alternatively, you could clean your chair by doing the following:

• Investing in an upholstery cleaner to deep clean the fabric
• Vacuuming to remove dust
• Using laundry detergents or rubbing alcohol to remove stains
• Wiping the chair with a microfibre cloth soaked in warm, soapy water

Keeping your chair clean and regularly maintained

We hope this blog post about how to protect your carpet from your office chair has given you some guidance on how to keep your carpet looking fresh – even when you use your chair every day! Here at Furniture At Work, we offer a wide range of desk accessories to keep your workspace looking great. Contact us today if you’re looking for any further information.