In recent months there has been an upsurge in queries from customers who are looking to install carpet over underfloor heating systems. Fine, great, wonderful and surely good for the trade you might think. Well, yes and no. You see, actually obtaining the tog rating of most carpets is a thankless and arduous business.
Balta are great – their website gives very clear, comprehensive information on all of their ranges – though curiously the ITC ones are not as thorough. Most of the British manufacturers need just a phone call to find out the relevant information, but some manufacturers simply ‘do not have’ the information. Erm….excuse me? you don’t know? You have to know – you make the carpet! Excuse the exasperation, but this comes after an hour’s fruitless searching for the tog rating of Bajong‘s Montana, which ended in my phoning Belgium, only to be told by the manufacturers that they ‘don’t have that information’. I was practically speechless and my customer stood aghast as I tried to explain that this manufacturer of the carpet he wants to buy is simply unwilling/unable to supply a basic technical detail.
A plea to manufacturers. Please can you begin printing the tog rating on the samples? Please, please, please. Otherwise every single time some new customer comes in and asks, we have to reach for the phone and customers are sometimes reluctant to take our word for it – they want proof positive printed on the sample. Is this really too much to ask?
Oh and a handy little tip. If you can only find the thermal resistance expressed this way 0.14m2 K/W then you simply multiply by 10 to get the tog rating, so in this example the tog rating would be 1.4.
I’m now compiling a list of information that is available and hope to publish this as soon as I can.
UPDATE: They emailed me in the end and I can confirm that Bajong state that the tog rating of Montana is a little under 1.2. Hopefully I will get the sale now.
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