With their rolling wheels, even the greatest office chairs may cause harm to your flooring. If your chair stays in place for a long time, your linoleum and hardwood floors are at risk of being chipped and ruined irreversibly, and your carpet is at risk of being snagged or distorted.
Contrary to popular belief, a tempered glass chair mat is the highest-quality chair mat you can ever find for the home office. These are much more robust than polycarbonate, don’t fold or wrinkle, and enable your chair to move freely around the working area. For those who do not want to spend the money on a tempered glass chair mat or who do not want to risk damaging their floor, there are cheaper alternatives. Polycarbonate chair mats will be much cheaper and are usually available in a wider range of sizes to accommodate your desk size including beautiful flowers. A high-quality office chair mat will improve your productivity and protect your floors at the same time.
What if I told you that the majority of flooring companies would invalidate their warranties if you don’t install chair mats? This is due to the fact that rolling caster wheels cause harm to flooring surfaces when they are not protected by mats. The use of chair mats helps to protect floors from creases, scratches, and other blemishes, as well as from spills.
Aside from that, chair mats make it much simpler to move about your workspace. Quick fact: rolling your chair on a glass chair mat requires 80 percent less effort than rolling your chair on carpeting! If you spend the whole day pushing your chair placed on the carpet, it might lead to back pain and knee issues.
How to Choose the Right Chair Mat for Your Office
Choose a chair mat that is sturdy and robust in its structure. The type of flooring in your workplace should be taken into consideration while selecting a mat, as well as its thickness. Carpeted flooring may require a different kind of chair mat than hardwood floors.
The Type of Floor
To begin, ask yourself – what sort of floor must the chair mat protect? Hard surfaces, like laminate or hardwood, need a chair mat with a flat underside that won’t harm the surface and will hold the mat in place. Instead of beveled (sloped) edges, these mats are typically flat with a thinner construction.
If your floors are covered with a carpet, look for a mat that has little hooks on the bottom that are specifically intended to keep the mat in place without hurting the carpeting. If you have computers or other electrical equipment in your workstation, it is a good idea to invest in an anti-static chair mat. The thickness of your carpet should determine the thickness of your chair mat. If you have a high-piled carpet with cushioning, thinner mats will bend or fracture. Go for the thicker heavy-duty chair mat.
Depending on how fluffy and deep they are, carpets may be classed into three main categories. It is common to find low-pile carpets in offices. They are hard, sturdy, and short, making them simple to maintain and step on without causing any discomfort. These require chair mats that are rather flat.
Medium-pile carpets have somewhat higher piles and are typically found in workplaces, however, they are more prevalent in households. These require chair mats that are significantly thicker and have hooks to keep them secure.
It’s not uncommon to find high-pile carpets in homes, but rarely in workplaces, because they’re difficult to clean, and they will wear down very fast due to heavy activity. The only way to hold the chair mats in place on such carpeting is to use spiked chair mats or a very heavy chair mat that floats well above the floor.
Size of the Mat
The next step is to double-check the mat’s dimensions. If you’re looking for the optimum size for a chair mat, there are no perfect measurements. However, you must make sure that it is the proper size for your workplace. It’s common for office chair mats to be placed under the desk, making it simpler to get up and move around while using your computer and your office desk. However, we don’t recommend it. A chair mat is only supposed to keep the weight of the chair (and you, of course).
When it comes to determining the ideal size and shape of the chair mat, nothing beats the old-fashioned way of trying it on the area. Use painter’s tape to map out the area where your chair mat will be placed. As soon as you’ve taped off a spot, spend a few minutes rolling around in it and see if you feel comfortable. Do you find yourself repeatedly rolling over the painter’s tape? If this is the case, you may also want to consider sizing up and buying a larger chair mat.
Then, using a tape measure, take an exact measurement of what you’ve taped out and compare it to the available models.
Conclusion
It’s natural to desire to save a little money from time to time. When it comes to chair mats, however, it’s not the best idea just like it’s not the best wood paneling. When it comes to quality, the gap between a plastic and tempered glass chair mat is significant. To be honest, plastic chair mats have always been a source of frustration and irritation for many buyers. These chair mats bend, crack, and get discolorated, fractured, and bubble to the point where you may be better off without one. In contrast, a glass chair mat provides a perfectly flat base for your new office chair.
