Carpet in laundromat

[Winston]

Having considered all options, I am seriously thinking about putting dark blue indoor/outdoor Olefin carpet in my laundromat. The area to be covered is about 3300 sq ft. Ceramic and epoxy are too expensive ($20K+), peel and stick tile is probably not durable enough. The VCT tile that's there now is awful... high maintenance and usually looks dirty no matter how often we mop it. The cost for 3300 sq ft of glue-down Olefin is $3200, installed. After reviewing the thread on this subject, I did have one question: Is it advisable to put one row of tile in front of each row of washers? The carpet people say it's not nesessary, but I've noticed that the area within one foot of the washers always seems to pick up lots of dirt.

[Gary C]

I have carpet in one of my mats and like it. I am going to put down a few walk off mats in frot of my dexters. They do take a beating in front of those machines. Keep in mind the cost of cleaning them. It may be as much as $450.00 each time you have them cleaned. I own a carpet cleaner so it's just some labor every few months. Over all I like it better than the tile. Quieter too.

Gary

[fluffy]

I'd never put in the carpet in my mat. Your tile prices seem expensive - I had about 2300 sq feet tiled - my porcelain tile cost was 95 cents per sq foot and I think the installation was under 2 sqft...total cost being under $6K. They tried to sell me the high price tile initially and I said whoa, this is for a laundromat...then they took me to the back and said we have this other tile (which looks great, it's just not the high price home stuff).

[srhaz]

I had carpet. It gives the mat a comfortable feel, and it reduces the noise big time. The cost of installing new carpet vs installing VCT myself was about the same. Took a long time doing it myself, section by section (Thanks to Ken for borrowing his roller and saving me $)
I did install new carpet in my dryer area. I like it. And when customers drop clothing on the floor from the dryer - the carpet gives you the feeling its ok.

My thoughts on a row of tile in front of the washers; Good idea, but I would think you have to be careful when you mop the tile as to keep the carpet edge clean. If you insist on carpet, I would put a long carpet mat runner in front of them. Like a front door mat but get one that is 2 feet wide by 20 feet long (or whatever). This is just a thought, I've never done it.

[sdudeck]

We have an unattended laundromat. 12 TLs, and 8 FLs. 9 Double stack dryers. Located in a not so ideal coin-op laundormat area. (Not many renters) I'll tell you what we did.
We removed the PVC tile and scrapped up what glue we could. Then we went to Home Depot and bought a couple of gallons of the Garage Paint, with the decorative flakes. (it comes in a box) We painted the floor and sprinkled the flakes. It looks great! Honestly. We felt that if it didn't look good, we could try something else. But with the size of store we have (850 sqft) we got lucky. After 8-9 months we just painted again - the floor looks brand new. Its an Epoxy/Acrilic Paint. Doesn't flake or chip. Thats my story

[Ken]

I was grow up in an island,almost nobody use carpet.
Ceramic tile will last you over 20 year,carpet and CVT won't,just a little expensive.If you keep up and your store not too wet too often,CVT will last over 20 years too.
I am big fun of the CVT,I have them in all my stores,my office,even my rental houses,all the same color too!It is just easier that way.No stick on tile,they won't last,I don't even put them in rental houses.