Commercial Carpet Tiles: What to Look For Before You Buy

Good commercial carpet tiles have a solution dyed pile, a backing that suits the room, a commercial duty rating from the maker and a fire test result your building certifier will accept. For most offices that means nylon on a PVC or cushion backing. Keep spare tiles from the same batch, so a damaged one can be swapped in minutes.

The rest of this guide goes through each of those checks in order, using the specs printed on the tiles we sell in Sydney.

What Makes a Carpet Tile Commercial

A commercial tile is built for rolling chairs, constant foot traffic and cleaning crews. The pile is short and dense, usually a loop rather than a cut pile, because loops resist crushing.

Most are 50cm squares. Some come as 25cm by 100cm planks, which lay like floorboards and suit corridors. Aurora Plus is one of these plank formats.

Every tile carries a few numbers worth reading before you compare prices:

• Fibre and how it is dyed
• Backing type and total thickness
• Pile height and gauge
• The maker's duty rating and warranty
• A fire test result

Each one is listed on the product page. Here is what they mean in practice.

Fibre: Nylon or Polypropylene

Almost every commercial tile is either nylon or polypropylene, and nearly all of them are solution dyed. That means the colour is added to the fibre while it is made, so it runs right through each strand. Cleaning chemicals and sunlight do far less to it than to a surface dyed yarn.

The real choice is between the two fibres.

You can see the gap in the warranties. Access International give Metro Living, a polypropylene tile, a 5 year wear warranty. Their nylon tiles, such as Platinum Square, carry 15 years.

Backing: Hardback, Cushion or Bitumen

The backing decides how the floor feels and sounds. It also changes how the tile sits on the slab.

A PVC hardback is the standard commercial tile. It is stable, thin and easy to replace. Lakeside, for example, is 5mm in total on its PVC backing, which clears most door swings without trimming.

A cushion backing adds give underfoot and soaks up footfall noise. Evolve Plus sits on a 4mm cushion, and Timeless Avenue reaches 9.5mm in total on an acoustic cushion. Choose cushion for open plan floors, aged care and anywhere staff stand for long stretches.

Bitumen backing is heavy and lies flat under its own weight. Arizona uses it under a 450gsm polypropylene pile.

Pile Height, Gauge and Pattern

Commercial piles are short. Lakeside has a 3mm pile. Evolve varies between 3mm and 5mm across a multi-level loop.

Gauge tells you how closely the rows of yarn are stitched. A 1/12 gauge is finer and denser than 1/10, so it packs more fibre into each square metre. Platinum Square runs at 1/12; Metro Living at 1/10.

Pattern matters more than people expect. A multi-level loop with some tonal variation hides traffic lanes and dropped crumbs between cleans. A flat, single colour shows every mark.

Then there is the laying pattern. Quarter turn rotates each tile 90 degrees and creates a chequer. Brick and ashlar offset the rows. A directional stripe, like Arizona's, looks very different in each one, so ask to see a full floor before you choose.

Duty Ratings, Warranties and Fire Tests

Makers rate each range for the traffic it can take. NFD rates Evolve extra heavy duty commercial. Treat the rating as a minimum for the busiest part of the floor, which is usually the entry and the path to the kitchen.

Read the warranty wording too. "15 year wear, normal traffic" covers the pile wearing through. Stains or chair wheel damage are usually treated separately, so check the terms.

Fire performance is the check most often missed. A commercial fitout usually needs floor coverings with a documented fire test, and your certifier or builder will ask for it. Access International list a pass under ISO 9239-1 for their tiles, and NFD publishes a fire certificate for Arizona. Ask for the certificate before you order, not after the floor is down.

Replacing Single Tiles

The biggest reason to choose tiles over broadloom is repair. A coffee spill, a paint drip or a burn takes out one 50cm square, and you lift it and press in a spare.

That only works if the spare matches. Colour can shift slightly from one production batch to the next, so keep a few tiles from the original order and store them flat in their carton.

Cartons matter here as well. Access International sell full cartons only, 20 tiles to a 5m2 carton for most ranges and 28 tiles to 7m2 for Metro Living. We round your order up to whole cartons at the measure, and the leftovers become your spares.

Our guide on how to lay carpet tiles covers the laying itself, from the starting line to cutting the edges.

Carpet Tiles or Hard Flooring at the Entry

Many offices pair tiles with a hard floor at reception. Water and grit come in at the door, and a plank floor wipes clean in seconds.

The photo above is from one of our commercial jobs, with a light grey oak-look plank at the entry. If you pair a plank with carpet tiles, plan the join where the two meet, because the plank and the tile are rarely the same height and the transition strip has to cover the difference.

Supply Only or Supply and Install in Sydney

You can buy our commercial carpet tiles three ways. We supply and install across Sydney with our regular installers, we supply only, or we supply to your own installer.

Each tile is priced per m2 on its product page. Installation is quoted after a free measure, because the subfloor and layout differ from one site to the next.

Want to see a range as a full floor? Ask us and we can show you in person or with photos of a completed job. Cushion-backed options such as Evolve Plus are worth comparing side by side with a hardback before you decide.

Browse every range in our commercial carpet tiles collection, or book a free measure and quote for your office.