Carpet v Vinyl v Powerchairs

[TwoTeasChris]

HI

We will be soon replacing all the carpet downstairs and are not sure what to go for. We have two powerchairs that regularly come in dirty and wet straight into the carpeted hallway. My thoughts are that there must be shop/office quality carpet out there that can put up with this misuse and just need hoovering afterwards.
The other option is a nice wood effect vinyl but we would all like carpet if practical. Also, in my experience, various tyre/vinyl combinations squeak like mad when wet!

Any good ideas, links, regrets ...

Thanks
Chris

[Burgerman]

Squeek yes. Leave tram lines too. Tiles also need cleaning. I have a very hard wearing dark grey/black hall and stair carpet and black tyres. Never leaves any visible marks...

http://www.grimsbyarea.com (house potentially for sale!) look at hallway...

Kitchen grey tiles. Leaves lines when wet... Mops up easily though. Red patio, leaves black tyre marks when wet and needs pressure washing to remove! If you care.

[TwoTeasChris]

NIce house! A very dark carpet might work but we would have to get rid of our white dog.
We have a cream coloured carpet at the moment that was bought before we had to buy my wife a powerchair. It's horrendous now as you can imagine.
(I actually took some dog hairs into CarpetRight and held them to the samples until I couldn't see them!)

Looks like a dark carpet and hair dye for the dog might be the answer ...

[Burgerman]

Well you can shave the dog, wait for it to peg out, swap it for a black one, dye it black, cut holes for arms and legs and stick it in a bin liner. Or ebay it and put the cash towards a dark carpet!

One of those should help!

[TwoTeasChris]

And it does not use those NHS style crumbly awful looking grey tyres. It could in the event that you think it will damage your carpets, but I don't have any problems there. It doesn't seem to leave any marks unless the tyres are wet. Then it does! But they vacuum up clean when dry.

How hard is it to get off?

[Burgerman]

Its debatable! Some tyres like the some fat quad bike ones are a bit plasticky so dont really leave marks. Others that look identical but made by a different chinese company on the sidewall are a stickier compound and they do and its hard to get off.

Some tyres leave marks when wet but it vacuumes up easily later... So its hard to say as it depends on the guy making them. The small front casters are the same, I have 4 different makes here all with the same design! Although on my chair the casters are so lightly loaded that they dont seem to leave marks other than outside on the red patio bricks when wet... For what its worth the fat off road tyres are also very lightly loaded and they leave less marks that the sticky rubber tubeless scooter ones I use on my other chair... Any really bad marks can be removed with a drop of lighter fluid or similar and a cloth. Or carpet foam, upholstery cleaner. But dark grey carpets and dry tyres are easier...

New carpets just fitted mark dead easily. After a few months they dont seem to mark any more and I have no idea why. And new tyres mark more than run in ones.

[TwoTeasChris]

Do you think the ones at the bottom of this page would be worth trying (on the original rim):
http://www.allterraintyres.co.uk/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=209

Would I just need normal car valves?
http://www.allterraintyres.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1105_1400&products_id=24000
(Maybe with right-angle adaptors to give me headroom.)

[Burgerman]

http://www.monkeybike.co.uk/acatalog/Tyres.html

I used to get my 3.50 x 8 tubeless high speed very strong scooter tyres here as fitted on the previous pre all terrain tyre chair.

Buy if you want to use tubes theres a few to choose from. The racy ones are usually stickier compounds... And they can leave marks.

The valve will be on the tubes unless you are using tubel;ess tyres, in which case you want "short" valves that you can usually get fron any tyre place easily. Especially motorcycle places.