Hot take: The before-and-after on a house I did in Phoenix was wild

I put down the same carpet in two rooms, a bedroom and a hallway, about 6 months apart, and the hallway already looks 10 years older because of the sun coming through that west-facing window. The UV just cooked the dye on the hallway edge while the bedroom stayed perfect. Has anyone else seen a huge fade difference just from how a room faces the sun?

2 comments

2 Comments

richard_young807d ago

My folks had the exact same problem with their porch in Tucson. We put down a nice polypropylene carpet out there facing west and within a year the edges by the sliding glass door looked almost white compared to the middle. The UV just absolutely destroys the dye molecules no matter what the label says about fade resistance. That room you mentioned getting hit with sun for like 5 hours straight really makes the difference. My buddy works at a flooring shop and he says the biggest mistake people make is not putting UV film on west or south facing windows before they lay new carpet.

ray_sullivan7d ago

Yeah so actually that fading you're seeing might not just be from the sun hitting the carpet directly. The UV rays go through glass windows and they can really mess with dyes and materials over time. But here's the thing - the hallway might be getting more indirect light bouncing off walls and floors too, plus if it's a narrow space the sun hits that one spot longer during the day. The bedroom probably has curtains or blinds that get closed sometimes, or the window faces a direction where the sun isn't as intense for as many hours. I had a customer who swore one room had "bad carpet" until we realized the window faced south and had no UV film on it. A lot of people don't realize that even cheap UV blocking film on windows can make a huge difference for flooring, furniture, pretty much anything that sits in the light. Just something to keep in mind before you blame the carpet quality.