Rug Pads and Child Safety

What do rug pads have to do with children? If your children are like mine, they love the floor – To play, roll around, sit and eventually nap – This puts them in direct contact with the rug and rug pad. The rug pad we choose to place under our area rug can dictate the difference between keeping the floor safe or unsafe for our children.

How Rug Pads Can Harm Children

Unfortunately, most rug pad manufacturers today tend to use chemicals and adhesives within their rug pads – This popular practice is proven to save on production costs and since many people search and purchase by “price” only, more and more rug pads today are made with lower cost materials. Since applying a coating of adhesive on each side of a felt rug pad saves manufactures money over the alternative method of using heat to press the felt together, many pads today are coated with adhesive.

When children are playing on the floor, or on the rug that sits on top of the rug pad, they are just about in direct contact with the pad. The adhesive within a rug pad normally possesses a chemical-like odor that can pass through the rug to fill the room and all within it, such as furniture and cloths. My kids are really sensitive to smell and they wouldn’t put up with this for a minute! When heat is added to the room, such as that from normal heating systems or from sunlight coming into the room, the adhesive can off-gas; This is a process in which a gas is given off as a by-product of a chemical, or chemical-like, agent. Now, try to tell your kids why this is all happening! Children should be able to play on the floor without any risk of being exposed to a strong chemical-like odor. This is one of the main reasons we at Rug Pad Corner manufacture our rug pads without the addition of adhesive or chemicals.

I remember once bringing home a rug pad as a “test” from another store. I ordered it online as a “Natural Felt rug pad made in the USA”. As soon as I placed it on the floor, my kids made their funny face, the one they make whenever mom cooks something of which they don’t like the smell. I told them the smell might be from the plastic wrapping, so let’s just open the pad and see what happens. Not before long, the kids put it to the test as one started building a Lego structure, the other reading a book and another just sitting to watch TV. Within an hour, all 3 kids started to complain about the smell, for which I knew the reason, yet I wanted to see their reaction. Needless to say, I exposed the pad and started to scrape a knife on the surface and it was just as I suspected – I was scraping off a layer of dry adhesive, the source of the offensive odor. My kids wondered what I was doing and I joked as I told them I was “dissecting” the pad like a doctor to see what was wrong with it, why it had the odor.

 Rug Pad Corner Maintains Child Safety with RPC Heat Pressed®

We take great steps to maintain a safe environment for all children by the method we use in the manufacture of our rug pads. In a time when most manufacturers look at the bottom line with the use of more and more chemicals and adhesives to cut the cost of producing their rug pads, Rug Pad Corner is using more of a genuine level of manufacture with the use of heat. Developed and sustained by Rug Pad Corner, the trademarked process referred to as RPC Heat Pressed® uses intense heat to press the felt together within our felt rug pads. Others apply an adhesive that dries to a stiff texture, yet we apply intense heat, almost like a huge iron, to compress the material together – The result is a very dense rug pad that will not shed or separate and the best part of all is that it will not smell or off-gas.

Add to this exclusive process of heat pressing the fact that the actual felt fibers within all of our felt rug pads are made of recycled materials, our Ultra Premium and Superior rug pads are some of the finest and  most natural rug pads that exist today. This means that children can not only play on top of the rug, they can also literally roll directly on the padding itself without the risk of any harm, allergic reaction or discomfort. We take the natural elements within our rug pads to another level and make then as safe as possible for all children and people to use and enjoy – That said, it goes without saying that our rug pads are rated as safe for hardwood and all types of floors.

Our children and their safety are a top priority in all that we do. I want them to have as much fun as possible without any concern over their exposure to unnecessary elements, such as a chemical within a rug pad. Since we are all about rug pads, we do our share to assure you of the safety of your(our)children – When they are on one of our rug pads, let them play, roll around, sit and even fall asleep. After all, they are in good hands with Rug Pad Corner on the floor.