How to protect your expensive blacklight carpet?

OldSchool84

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All,

I'm getting ready to put down blacklight carpet (The usual "Shockwave" pattern). This carpet, I have been told by the manufacturer (Joy Carpets), has been discontinued. They have a little over 140'x12' left. Once it's gone, it's gone. The last thing I want to do is rut or stretch or tear the carpet (I'm using a commercial grade pad). Most of my games are on rollers, but some are on those "EZmove" pads. For those who do have this type of carpet, what has been your experiences with it and how well does it hold up?

Thanks.
 
In my game room i have just regular carpet, and was told not to put a pad down, that moving the games around with a pad that it would pull and tear easier. Don't know if that's true or not, but i have been moving games in and out of the room for 10 years and still looks good.
 
I always wonder how those carpets would handle being cleaned or shampooed. I would hate to loose the glow in the dark feature of the carpet.
 
The stuff we're all buying is made to handle kids.

Damn near Kevlar... Shampooing shouldn't affect it's glow, but try a small patch first if you're paranoid...
 
I have had a layer of blacklight "Celebration" pattern (called different at different suppliers though) for about 6 years now. It has 22 games and a pinball sitting on it in a 13.5 x 15.5 room (yeah, tight, but half are mini's).

I have moved the games around completely at least 3 times, including stripping the entire room and rolling up the carpet due to an impending flood 3 years ago. It is simply laying loose on top of the existing berber carpet with pad on top of concrete.

Yeah, the leg levellers leave dimples, but over time they do disappear. Note: I do install brand new legs on all new machines before they come in so nothing can snag from that aspect.

I usually use the cheap-o plastic (not even good teflon coated nylon) sliders to move them any significant distance, but to move in and out to adjust/repair, I just lift and end and slide on other 2 legs.

Never had a problem. I don't allow food or drink down there but even during my kid's bday parties some gets there but with black, you really dont notice anything small. No liquid ever spilled except once a couple ounces of beer tipped from a guest's drink who kicked it over (not honoring the no drink policy) and I quickly dabbed it with lots of wet towells and never had to revisit it.
 
I don't have experience with the exact carpet you are using but I assume it's commercial grade carpet more geared to sell to establishments with a lot more traffic than a home game room would have.

I have commercial grade printed carpet in my game room. It's actually approx 25-30 year old carpet from my childhood skating rink that was never used. I have pics of what the carpet looks like after that 25-30 period with many many kids on roller skates having skated on it. They kept the food to a certain area of the establishment so the rest of the carpet was food free. The snack area did eventually get recarpeted but the rest was the same I recall as a child.

Even with all that use and time I would say the carpet held up very well. It's possible that carpet was made a lot better years ago but I doubt it was that much better if any than modern day carpet.

The skate rink and my game room both have the carpet glued direct to cement. I doubt having padding would cause much issue but every arcade I went to BITD had carpet glued direct to cement with no padding so I did it this way. Also having previously had games in the room when I had padded carpet I can say that games slide more easily without the padding. And I've found that directly glued carpet can be swept with a broom to excellent results.

As long as you don't snag the carpet when moving a game I'm sure it will hold up fine.
 
I have the carpet you speak of. Its durable as hell. I haven't had to really deep clean it, but I have a few dirt spots that cleaned up with just water. I vacuum a few times a week. That's sux they discontinued it. I thought it was a really popular carpet. Glad I grabbed mine.
 
I have a no shoes policy for my gameroom. But I have the same policy in the house. Shoes are left at the door.
 
I have "Fiddle Fattle" black light pattern from Astro Carpet Mills in Dalton, GA. The carpeting will last.... my only grudge is having two yellow labs. The f'n dog hair is close to impossible to remove so if you have white-furred dogs beware!!!! No industrial lint roller will remove the hair, and you have to literally roll over the same carpet piece with the vacuum a few times to get any to come off.

One other note is keep the black light carpeting away from sunlight. That's really the only bad thing as it will fade rendering the UV effect useless.
 
I have something close to this.
images
I've had it for four years and beat the hell out of it. Beer, pop, food, dog crap, dead mice, tons and tons of kids, cig ashes, games moved over and over, and the dustiest place in the house. I have used a little Spot Shot to clean it, and simply vacuum it as needed. Besides the black being not quiet as dark (dust), it looks brand new. This is commercial grade carpet that is made for this kind of abuse. The arcades used this carpet for years before replacing, and think of how much abuse we did to them! :)
 
One other note is keep the black light carpeting away from sunlight. That's really the only bad thing as it will fade rendering the UV effect useless.

That's exactly what I was gonna bring up... the section of carpet that was near my patio door (before I covered the window) is a little bit lighter. Hardly noticable, but if you look closely, you can see what used to be orange is now more yellow. It was only uncovered for 3 months max, but it was on the south side of the house and got a lot of sun.

Other than that, it has held up great to moving games, small spills, mild cleaning, etc.

DogP
 
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