The best (and worst) rug pads for flatweaves
So you've found the perfect flatweave - a beautiful dhurrie, kilim, or soumak. Congratulations. Now you want to show your love by protecting your rug from excessive wear and tear, keeping it from slipping, wrinkling, and bunching with a high-quality rug pad that will also be kind to your floors.
Not all rug pads, even the highest quality, are right for flatweaves. Unlike carpets or pile rugs, flatweaves tend to be very thin and often somewhat delicate, particularly prone to slipping, wrinkling, buckling and bunching.
The magic is in "The hug"
To keep flatweaves laying felt, you need pads with strong grip and maybe a bit of cushion. Pads that only provide cushion without grip, like 100% felt or memory foam rug pads, don’t work well with flatweaves. Look for pads that combine felt cushioning with natural rubber, the strongest gripping, longest lasting, safest and most eco-friendly material for keeping rugs lying flat and in place.
Beyond the combination of rubber and felt, you want to look for pads engineered and designed for great grip. The magic is in the hug. The best pads for flatweaves are made by heat pressing the top of the felt so it grabs the bottom of the rugs, almost like Velcro. This keeps the rug lying flat against the pad. The rubber bottom then tightly grips floors (without sticking to them or staining them, the way some synthetic adhesives can) keeping flatweaves stable and smooth.
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Due to their thinness, flatweaves bunch and wrinkle easily without the proper rug pad.
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Rug Pads that combine rubber for grip and felt for cushion are ideal for flatweaves.
3 of the best rug pads for flatweaves
Three of the best pads on the market today offer this combination of materials and engineering with varying levels of cushion and lift.
RUGPRO
For maximum grip with a minimal lift, consider RugPro, a low-profile, high-performance pad that works particularly well in high traffic areas and in hallways and doorways, where door clearance may be an issue. This pad’s solid design offers more floor coverage than traditional waffle-style non-slip pad, keeping dirt from accumulating and reaching your floors and making vacuuming easier, effectively extending the life of your flatweave by helping to keep it clean (especially important when you consider that dirt is the #1 cause of rug degradation; keeping your rug clean keeps it young!) RugPro is also needle-punched using very small holes to allow rugs and floors to breathe by improving airflow.
CONTOUR LOCK
If you’d like a bit of cushion under your flatweave but still need to keep a relatively low profile, consider Contour Lock. This 1/8 inch-thick felt and rubber pad offers a strong grip and moderate levels of cushioning without bulking. Flatweaves often tend to have rough backings, so this pad’s slightly thicker solid design not only helps keeps rugs clean, but fully protects floors from scratches. This pad offers a great overall value for reliable grip and subtle cushioning.
SUPERIOR LOCK
For more cushion, particularly under larger flatweave rugs in living rooms, dining rooms and bedrooms, there’s Superior Lock, combining the best of both grip and cushion. Made with more felt and a gentle heat-pressing technique, Superior Lock offers unyielding, non-slip traction with thick, cushioned support. It’s essentially a thick layer of felt combined with a thinner non-slip, natural rubber pad. The needle-punched felt surface naturally clings to the bottom of rugs to anchor it to its surface, giving your flatweaves the hug they need while giving you extra softness and comfort in two thicknesses, 1/4 inch and 7/16 inch, the best choice for maximum comfort under flatweaves.