Carpet construction will determine not only the beauty, but also the wearability of your floor fashions.
The specific construction or manufacturing method of a carpet affects both its appearance and performance. Most carpet is made by one of four methods:
Tufted carpet: is made on a high-speed machine that stitches big loops of yarn through the backing fabric. A latex coating locks the loops in place, and then a secondary backing material is applied for strength and stability. Over 90 percent of the broadloom carpet made in North America is tufted. It’s efficient and less expensive to produce than woven carpet, and offers consumers a complete range of styling.
Woven carpet: construction is similar to woven fabric. The pile, weft, and warp yarns interlace on the loom, allowing for wide versatility of design. Velvet plush, Axminster, and Wilton carpets 
are all woven.
Needle-punched carpet: is made by punching layers of fiber through a mesh fabric by thousands of barbed needles. The results is a felt-like carpet. This type of carpet was developed first for indoor-outdoor use. It’s relatively durable but limited in available styles.
Hand-knotted carpets and rugs: have been made (mostly in wool) for centuries, primarily in the Middle East and China. Commonly referred to as Oriental rugs, they follow distinct traditions of color and pattern and are usually very expensive. (Link to the rugs page)
Most of the carpet you will find is tufted, produced on tufting machines. Basically, these are huge sewing machines that insert pile yarns into a backing material. During the tufting process, these machines often use over 1,000 needles, which can be adjusted to vary the height of the individual loops that appear on the surface of the carpet. After the loops are inserted into the primary backing material, a heavy layer of latex sizing is applied to the underside to firmly lock the tufts in place. Over this, a secondary backing material is bonded to add further strength and stability. Tufting is the fastest and also the most economical method of manufacturing carpet. Because of this, tufted carpet is generally less expensive to purchase than woven carpet. The tufting process now produces over 90 percent of all the carpet made in America. The closer the tufts the denser the carpet.
