Carpet in Science Labs

[till]

We are about to get our labs refurbished and the department want to put a carpet square in the middle of our wet labs where the chairs go. My head teacher is horrified Does any one have carpet in their labs?

till

[cactus155]

Yes we have a square of carpet not in the middle of the room but as soon as the students walk in 1 door of the Labs, that is where the students listen to the teacher or Lab. Tech! explaining what they are going to be doing. We have theory and Prac. science in the same labs as well.

[coxy]

I thought the floors in Labs had to be "wash & wear" to enable spills to be mopped, cleaned etc quickly and easily. Carpet seems really strange to me. However, I am just a lab assistant!

[JudyM]

Yes we've got carpet in the centre of two of our labs where the students sit & I rue the day they fitted it.
The idea was to make the labs quieter, but it doesn't seem to make much difference.

If you do get it, just make sure you allow enough room for all the desks & chairs with students sitting at them to sit on the carpet (one of our problems) & allow enough room for your biggest trolley to fit around the edge of the lab.

Good luck
Judy

[rodannt]

Hi...........We have a centre square of carpet in all of our science rooms, it has its advantages as far as noise goes but I would prefer rooms with out it. We had a mercury spill on the carpet once !So the carpet had to be pulled up and replaced..............
Anne

[Loopy]

We have carpet squares where our desks are, and lino around the benches. If you were to get carpet, then I could highly recommend carpet squares.

Lou.

[Ocean Breeze]

we have one lab with the centre carpeted. It works very well... so far.
The edged of the carpet have a type of "bund' up to the carpet, so that if there was a spill coming over from th e wet area, the water would have to be at least 2 cms high at floor level, before it would even reach the carpet.
This is great for dual purpose rooms such as this. Seperates the areas well, and student pracs are only ever on the wet lino area.

[Voice]

Our school has carpet in the centre of the rooms, then a linoleum floor surrounding this carpet. The linoleum is about 1 - 1 1/2 metres around the carpet. As much as I was skeptical, it works fantastically well.

The students DO NOT take their chairs to the benches to complete their prac. work. Why? The chairs only fit the desks (normal size) not the benches. It is much safer if students stand whilst doing prac. work. This forces them to stand. NO prac. work is done at their desks.

As you can see by the picture, we have ski legs on the chairs, so there is no putting holes in the carpet or the linoleum. No twisting. There is rocking but that is safe as long as the students stay on the carpet.

Our current science rooms are 8-10 years old. Look at the carpet. It is in great nick. Notice though, we do not have peninsular benches. Ours are around the room.

The rooms were quieter originally, but I am sure that all students have become louder since that time.

Maree

[RosalieM]

We don't have carpet, but i know you can get washable carpet. Don't ask me where from though! When they did up the kitchen/dining area in my college they put down washable carpet so they could just hose out the room when they needed too. I'm not really sure how it works but it might be worth looking into if you are concerned about cleaning it.

[Ocean Breeze]

My comment is ditto for Marees.We even have the same chairs.

Notice in Marees pic, that theres a graduated rise up to the carpet area. Designed not to trip.
We have had a few minor floods and spills in the wet areas over the years, but the carpet was not affected. Works wonderfully well, and looks spiffing to boot. Quiet, classy and functional I say.
It also say that the furniture doesnt get thrown round like in the other labs, and certainly much more quietly that the lino floors.