Have you placed glass or plastic chair mats below your chairs to protect your carpet or your lovely hardwood flooring? Have you used spiked mats or wired the chair mats so that they will not move while you move your chair? If so, you may have doomed your carpets and hardwood floor and created the right environment for an early demise.



How is this you ask? When you place plastic or glass mats on a carpet you prevent the air from freely circulating under them. The carpet may not wear out as you roll your chair, but it will be short lived because it is not freely aired! The plastic or glass mat will trap gases beneath the carpet and cause discoloration of the carpet. Regularly moving your desk and lifting the glass mats may help you air the carpet but the amount of work involved will surely be cause for putting this unwelcome task off.

Secondly, if you place chair mats which are fitted with “spikes” under your chair, they cannot be easily moved. Even if you meticulously clean the surrounding carpet, over the years the colors of the carpet will dim and fade. However, the carpet below the chair mat will remain untouched and will not fade. Soon you will have a piece of carpet which does not match with the rest of carpeting in the room. What do you do? This problem could be alleviated by using a chair mat that was simple to reposition and clean under.

And often, plastic mats tend to abrade the fine finishes used on hardwood floors. Unless equipped with proper backings, the plastic mats tend to conform to any material they are placed over, making a full size backing material mandatory to protect the floor.

The newest type of chair mats now available are made from high density wood products and come in a number of wood grained finishes such as oak, mahogany, walnut and cherry. These finish options will match with all kinds of décor and give you the very functionality you are looking for in rolling comfort and flooring protection without the disadvantages already mentioned. The chair mats come in several shapes and sizes and are padded with rubber to provide it with the necessary flooring protection and still avoid unwanted movement of the mat during use. As they are not fitted with spikes, or wired in place, they can be lifted and carpets or floors cleaned and aired regularly. They can be easily be repositioned to ensure that the wear and tear of the carpet or floor is in synchronization with the wear and tear of the carpet or floor elsewhere in the room. These wooden chair mats can also be relocated along with other furniture of the room to an entirely different position without incurring huge expenses of relaying carpets or redoing the floors! The choice is yours!