We've Moved!

Our new physical address is:
2304 Dalton Industrial Court
Dalton GA 30721
Please be sure to send any color or pattern standards to this address for overnight delivery.

Our Mailing address will remain:
PO Box 2746
Dalton GA 30722

Our Toll Free number will remain the same:
888-351-0306

Our local phone numbers have changed:
Phone: 706-529-3900
Fax: 706-529-4570

The direct lines for Cassie Peterson and Lacy Price will no longer be in service, so please update your contact information in your cell phones.

All of our email addresses will remain the same.

Street Cred

Urban Dictionary defines “street cred” as: commanding a level of respect in an urban environment due to experience in or knowledge of issues affecting those environments.
Nood is starting to see all the ideas Bo Barber, the founder/owner of Nood Fashion, had in the beginning come to fruition. We are starting to see more and more designers make the choice to stop shopping and start designing. Beautiful color ways are coming in on purchase orders, and we want everyone to get in on the action. We are going to start sending out packages of 16x16 samples for you to show what is hot right away to your market. These samples will be made from salvaged waste materials or overruns from regular orders and will show off the different backing systems we offer. So when you see these samples, you know a designer in another market chose this exact style and this exact color for their client’s project. We are going to refer to this as our Street Cred program. Start to look for these packages to hit your mail box. We just sent out sets of several different Nexterra backed samples! We also hope this program will extend into special runs for new products that will be added to the Preview Collection. Let us know if you have any questions regarding the Street Cred program.

Minimums, What Minimums?

Minimums are almost a hated word by designers especially when their quantity does not align with some carpet manufacturer's machine capacity and efficiency levels. The only collection that Nood offered that required minimums were the Preview collection. This was due to the fact that we don't keep these greige goods on hand unless we receive an order. We have recently reworked some scheduling practices where we tuft each type threadup once a month. This has really open more doors and opportunities than we initially realized. Not only are we making carpet "just in time" for it to be dyed for regular purchase orders, we can incorporate some of our rarely ran styles from our Preview collection with our standard running line pattern runs. This manufacturing opportunity has allowed us to change our policy on minimums. We no longer require minimum yardage requirements for all of our preview styles. The only styles that would still have minimums would be custom solution dyed products such as the Organically Grown Solution dyed product on the back of the Coordinates II portfolio. As always, forecasting the sales in advance will help turn around times.

Carpet Backing Overview

Backings are the most critical determinant in how green a product is and how long it is going to perform. Nood made a commitment at an early stage that we were only going to offer products that minimize our impact on the environment. It simply made sense to make our products last as long as possible while maximizing recycled content and renewable resources. In a industry that typically offers high performance backing systems as a upgrade, we decided that the alternative to high performance must be low performance and that seems like the wrong thing to do.

My goal here is to briefly outline our backing options in an effort to make you comfortable presenting it to your clients and dealing with questions from flooring contractors. First, I want to remind you that Nood trumpets our strategy of outsourcing every process possible. This is probably one of the more green decisions that we made. The last thing this industry needs is more plants and smokestacks. Outsourcing also allows us to keep pace with technological advancements and will always promise to do the next right thing the moment it comes along.

Broadloom Backing OptionsWe have partnered with Universal Textile Technologies to apply all of our broadloom options. They are a prominent OEM in our industry and provide high performance, green backings to most of the prominent carpet brands in the marketplace. They are clearly recognized as a leader in the industry and are a prominent entity in the Dalton carpet landscape. There are four total options available for Nood broadloom. There are two categories or brands of backing.

• EnviroCel
o Laminate Plus
o Cushion Plus

• Biocel
o Laminate
o Cushion

Differences Between Biocel & Envirocel
Biocel is the flagship offering and the other is EnviroCel. Both Biocel and EnviroCel offer a laminate and cushion option. This is where the four possible broadloom backings on any of our styles are derived. Laminate can best be described simply not being a cushion. All of our broadloom backings offer moisture resistance and full 10 year warranties with superior tuft bind, no delamination, and no edge ravel is guaranteed if installed in accordance with the Carpets Rug Institute’s guidelines. All of the backings are based on polyurethane technology and begin with a pre-coat that gives them these basic benefits and advantages.

Biocel Laminate and Cushion move from this pre-coat phase to another application of polyurethane in two varying volumes and density that either make it the Laminate or Cushion version. The secondary application is sandwiched between the pre-coat and a fleece made of recycled plastic bottles. EnviroCel moves from the similar pre-coat phase to a secondary application where either a secondary fleece is attached using acrylic adhesion to create the Laminate version or a separate polyurethane cushion is attached to create the Cushion version of EnviroCel.

The main difference between Biocel and EnviroCel is that Biocel gives carpet an additional quality of being a moisture barrier. This is a critical quality in certain commercial applications.

Our standard broadloom backing is Biocel Laminate. Keep in mind, there is a slight up-charge for either cushion options as well as a slight deduct to go down to the EnviroCel Laminate option.

Envirocel Laminate Plus has two unique qualities that make it one of our fastest growing backings.
1. It is our least expensive backing options.
2. It can be stretched in over pad which makes it our best competitor or crossover to action back.

Green Attributes
So what makes this stuff green when you are hearing the word polyurethane? UTT has replaced a significant percentage of the polyols used with an extract from soybeans called soyol. They have also eliminated the use of calcium carbonate (crushed rock from a hole in the earth) with a residual of coal to electricity. This coal ash is unique in its cylindrical shape and this actually enhances performance. The final piece is a pretty standard external fleece made of PET (recycled plastic bottles). All of these attributes allow us to offer long-lasting products that have a minimum of 35% GBW (green by weight). This has actually gone down slightly with the introduction of EnviroCel Laminate because the product is so lightweight.

Please remember that what separates Nood from the rest of the industry is not the green technology that we have access to but our commitment to only offering that green technology. Change is not something that happens like the weather, it is something that we choose to do. Change is a verb!

Modular Backing Option
Now, let’s discuss our recent decision to launch to an exciting backing system that has marked our entry into the carpet tile market. By the way, carpet tile is clearly the fastest growing segment and does not appear to be looking back. I am not going to address the benefits and advantages of carpet tile vs broadloom in this blog but it is coming. Feel free to call me with any questions in the meantime. Nood considered most of the prominent tile backings in the industry and it was a no-brainer to go with Nexterra from Beaulieu of America.

Nexterra is a very dependable backing system that has had years in the marketplace. They did have some initial push back because it was hard to cut during installation but this was addressed and they have had no further issues. The basic idea with this technology is where 35% post consumer content from recycled water, soda bottles, & 50% post consumer recycled glass find new life in Nexterra, all of which is diverted away from our rapidly-filling public landfills. This concoction is applied perfectly to the back of our carpet to render a dimensionally stable 24”x 24” sized flat carpet tile. It is not your typical PVC carpet tile, and I would encourage you to not position this product as a competitor to some of the cheaper tiles in the market. It begs reminding you that Nood offers one of the greenest tiles in the industry when combined with our high recycled content fiber. Now we offer the ability to have any combination of patterns and colors where the designer can stop wasting time shopping and start designing exactly what they want with no minimums or up-charges. While our carpet tile offering is not the cheapest in the industry, it is clearly competitive with anything remotely similar.

Thanks for your time and below are some links to various backing information that is at your disposal. I would also encourage you to call me with any questions.

www.universal-textile.net/PDFgallery3.htm

www.bolyu.com/technicalpdf/Nexterra.pdf

Benjamin Moore Paint Fans

As you are all aware, we primarily use Benjamin Moore paint fans as a reference tool for color your way samples. We justed wanted to let you know that we have limited amounts of paint fans available of the Classic and the Preview fans. If you need fans, we would encourage you to visit your local Benjamin Moore supply store (Ace Hardwares)and ask for them. Usually they will give you one set free but charge for additional sets. There are also online reference tools you can use for color identification or referencing, visit www.benjaminmoore.com/.

Nood Production Lead Times

This posting is a follow up to our recent un-manufacturing entry. Nood is committed to a true on-demand or made-to-order manufacturing philosophy that has been evolving over the last year. We have endured some growing pains in recent months as we have introduced our Nexterra backing system for tile and have had to make some significant adjustments to our manufacturing processes and procedures. The reality is that those challenges have forced us to make overall changes that have created a more streamlined system that is more rhythmic and structured than ever before.

The net result is that we are proud to announce our standard lead times for tile will be 6-8 weeks and broadloom will be 4-6 weeks. This range is primarily due the fact that we are making and dying a textile and then applying a complex backing. It is not a simple process and there are a lot of moving parts and challenges. It is impossible to predict an exact lead time or ship date as there are essentially three major steps in the process that take on lives of their own. These lead times are well within the standard expectations in the industry. I would argue that being able to offer the complexity and customization that Nood stands for and do that with no minimums and up charges at competitive prices and lead times is pretty compelling. Nood looks forward to growing and evolving with you as we revolutionize carpet one client at a time.

New Style Hanky Planky

We are working to get everyone a couple of samples of this new addition to the Preview Collection. You should receive those by the first of March.