Does carpet really warm the room or does it just feel that way?

ripplyuk

I’m thinking of replacing the bedroom carpets with vinyl or some other type of hard flooring. I keep hearing that the rooms will be colder without carpets. Is there any truth to this or is it more the perception eg: if walking around in bare feet. Would the air temperature be higher with carpet? The bedrooms are upstairs if that makes any difference. I can understand that something like ceramic tiles would suck heat but vinyl is a plastic and I thought that would insulate quite well. 

housebuyer143

I don't think there is any truth to it apart from it feels warm under foot.
Tiles are freezing and so make a room feel cold, but laminate and vinyl I don't see as particularly cold in the winter.

FreeBear

ripplyuk said: I’m thinking of replacing the bedroom carpets with vinyl or some other type of hard flooring.

I have laminate in one (small) bedroom - Can hear every footstep in other rooms. Carpet with underlay will absorb a lot of the noise. The lack of carpet doesn't make any difference to the temperature of the room, but the floor isn't as warm underfoot.

Norman_Castle

 I'd suspect most of the insulation from carpet is from the underlay. Hard flooring with decent underlay should be equally insulating. I've got laminate floor in my bedroom on green boards and don't find it overly cold.

MikeJXE

For me it's all about how cold it is to my feet when I get out of bed

ripplyuk

FreeBear said:

ripplyuk said: I’m thinking of replacing the bedroom carpets with vinyl or some other type of hard flooring.

I have laminate in one (small) bedroom - Can hear every footstep in other rooms. Carpet with underlay will absorb a lot of the noise. The lack of carpet doesn't make any difference to the temperature of the room, but the floor isn't as warm underfoot.

@FreeBear I’ll maybe avoid laminate then. It’s one I was considering but I don’t want anything noisy. That’s a good point about the carpet absorbing noise too. 

grumbler

ripplyuk said:

I keep hearing that the rooms will be colder without carpets.

If they say this about the first floor rooms in general, this just demonstrates how poor school education is in this country.
My bedroom will get only colder if I fit carpets because it's the only room where heating is switched off.

ripplyuk

@grumbler I was told that there can be cold draughts under the floorboards (even upstairs) and the carpet insulates against that. Also that the downstairs rooms might feel colder because there’s no carpet above. 

HHarry

One of the bedrooms in our new house has laminate and it always feels noticeably colder than the other carpetted bedrooms.  I’ve just insulated all the floors and I know the radiators are correctly sized.

I’m sure that carpet and underlay provides some improved insulation, but I think it’s mainly a perception of the laminate because the floor surface feels cooler.

ispookie666

I think it is subjective. 
We replaced laminate(I think) with thick pile carpets and cloud 9 underlay. It's really nice and warm.  We hardly have heating on in the bedrooms (first floor) 

twopenny

To test walk around your kitchen in bare feet at night - then walk on carpet.
Or put a house thermometer on the kitchen floor then put it on carpet. Compare.
I used to stay at my great aunts house before fitted carpet so lino. Always a rug beside the bed. Always slippers beside the bed.