FOR EVERY STEP YOU TAKE...
...there's a Carpenter Luxury Underlay

Carpenter's newest underlay factory was commissioned in September 2006 at Glossop, Derbyshire in the UK.
This state of the art manufacturing facility produces a range of top quality domestic polyurethane underlays 8mm GreenStep, 10mm SuperGreenStep, 9mm RichStep and 11mm Deepstep. Also available are two contract polyurethane underlays 7mm FirmStep and 9mm PowerStep. Both these are suitable for doublestick installation as well as the traditional stretch-fit. Carpenter polyurethane underlays are recycled and recyclable and are excellant heat and sound insulators.

Click on images for a full product information sheet

All Carpenter Underlays are recycled and recyclabe

Whether it's the settee you sit on, the mattress you lie on, the car you drive or the sponge you bathe with, the chances are you will have enjoyed the luxury and comfort of Carpenter polyurethane foam.

The furniture and bedding industries, the motor trade, the medical profession, a myriad of other users, purchase polyurethane foam for their products; anywhere that comfort or protection is paramount.

Inevitably, when these various manufacturers cut and slice the designer shapes of their models from the large blocks of polyurethane, off-cuts and trim are created. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of virgin foam trim from UK and European factories. This is quality trim that would otherwise have to be disposed of, but Carpenter manufacture high performance carpet underlay out of this valuable resource.

When Carpenter delivers the blocks of foam to converters throughout the UK and Europe, they collect the trim and bring it back to the underlay plant in Glossop, Derbyshire. It's cost effective, efficient and green; recycling and recreating a much sought after underlay in our own back yard and not hauling materials halfway around the world.

Back in Glossop we shred, and granulate this trim into crumb and then rebond it with adhesive, under pressure, in a mould. The more crumb that's compressed into the mould, the denser the finished article becomes.

The large blocks that come out of the mould are then precision peeled and laminated on both sides in a fast continuous process, before being wrapped and shipped. During this process the edges are trimmed and this edge trim is taken back to the beginning of the process to be shredded and granulated and put back into the system. Any substandard material is also put back into the system. Carpenter does not sell 'seconds' or 'B' grade, we recycle anything that is not up to standard.

It's a wonderful environmentally friendly story….but it doesn't end there.

In the United States and Canada, carpet fitters are responsible for returning any carpet and underlay to their suppliers. Carpenter provide their larger customers with balers and the old underlay is collected and eventually returned to the Carpenter factories throughout North America. The underlay is then cleansed, recycled and made back into underlay. These are referred to as 'Rip Ups' in the States, and it is the intention of Carpenter, here in the UK to set up a similar return and collection service in the future. This will only be available for PU underlay and only that without paper laminates.

Recycled and recyclable…..It has such strong appeal to the growing awareness of green issues the general public now have. The carpet contractors, retailers and fitters are only too well aware of the increasing costs of waste management. Just look at the increase in the cost of hiring a skip over the past few years!
It's everybody's duty to reduce waste in all its ugly forms and using this type of underlay is one of them.

On health and safety issues Polyurethane underlay score very highly. When the Woolworth furniture showroom fire disaster happened in the eighties, legislation for flammability was dramatically changed for furniture and bedding, so the UK now has some of the highest FR standards in the world for all polyurethane foam used in the UK furniture and bedding industry and has to be what is termed, Combustion Modified, i.e. highly flame retardant. Therefore the underlay that we manufacture at Carpenter has the majority of this type of FR foam, adding to the safety aspect of the underlay made in our UK facility. Can that be said of similar products from far away places? What a lot of importers forget is, that it is they who are responsible for testing products that they bring to these shores, not the foreign manufacturers and if there is a problem then, legally, it sits with the UK seller!

Polyurethane underlay weighs about a third that of rubber alternatives. It makes life so much easier lifting and carrying rolls of Carpenter underlay down driveways and up flights of stairs and, yes, the payload on our customer's vans and lorries is so much greater. However, most importantly, it's impossible to open a magazine or turn on the television these days with out being reminded that there are 'No win, no fee' solicitors waiting out there to feed the blame and claim culture that has descended upon us over the last few years. Back injuries are one of the most common claims, caused by heavy lifting, and this can now be hugely reduced with the advancement of these superior lightweight underlay materials.

Although Carpenter have been manufacturing polyurethane block at their Glossop site for over thirty years, the underlay manufacturing plant is but two years old and was commissioned in September 2006. Carpenter are the largest polyurethane underlay manufacturer in the world, producing approximately a third of the massive volume of underlay sold in North America. In the UK the new range of Carpenter underlays, specifically designed and developed for British tastes have quickly taken a sizable share of the market, underlining Carpenter's belief that lightweight, high performance, recycled polyurethane underlays will soon overtake and leave behind heavy, rubber alternatives………… destined for a hole in the ground near you !