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
No comments:
Post a Comment