rec me a specific carpet chair mat please

August 22, 2021 7:54 AM

my home office is carpeted and I'm having a bad time.

I bought this one and I hate it. Not only does it slide around, but it's hard for me to move the chair around on somehow, and when it slides around it buckles up against stuff.

Do you have one you like? It has to work on a thick fluffy carpet.

posted by fingersandtoes to Shopping (10 answers total)

You are not alone. I bought a mat to protect my fitted carpet from my chair, and it has the same problems as yours: it bunches up and tries to hide under the desk, so that I have to tug it back into position at least daily, and it's not as easy for the chair to move on as the carpet was. I was thinking of posting a question here myself.

Your link is broken, but chances are it doesn't point to the same one I bought, so let me warn you off this one, which I'm sure would be fine as a patio rug as the listing suggests, but is not well suited to this particular use.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 8:42 AM on August 22, 2021

Best answer: Your link reverts back to the question, so I'm unable to see the hated chair mat. However, I will tell you my experience with chair mats on thick carpets. The kind carried by warehouse stores and office supply chain stores, IME, develop dents pretty quickly and shift around easily. I craved a glass mat, having heard radio ads for Vitrazza, so I bought this one from amazon, which seemed pretty equivalent to Vitrazza and was 1/4 the price. In less than a year, it developed an internal crack, probably from sliding my empty chair back onto the mat when it drifted (or was moved) off. (To be fair, the instructions say never to slide the chair over the edge but I got tired of lifting my chair up every time it needed to be put back on the mat.) And, frankly, I had to reposition the mat several times after it slid around on the carpet, which was not a happy job because the mat weighs 40 pounds in the smallest size. So, I returned to a plastic mat, this one to be specific. That was a year ago and I am (so far) happy with it. I believe I've repositioned it once, my chair rolls smoothly, and the surface is undented.
posted by DrGail at 8:49 AM on August 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

I've got two of these bamboo mats, one to protect a wooden floor, which is almost matches and looks great on, and one on a thick oriental rug which has a carpet pad under it, so it's pretty soft. Both work great. The standard ones that are sold at Staples are too thin, they're made for typical low-pile commercial office carpeting. Mine are in daily use. They need a little adjusting now and then, but not very often.
posted by beagle at 8:55 AM on August 22, 2021

Best answer: If you're on carpet you need a thick rigid one with spikes. We've had this one for 6 years with no problems. Doesn't slide around. Too rigid to bunch up.
posted by Crystalinne at 11:09 AM on August 22, 2021 [3 favorites]

The other thing you can do is get one of the woven-type mats and fix it to a plywood backing.
posted by pipeski at 12:09 PM on August 22, 2021

Best answer: +1 for the Floortex brand linked above. They are polycarbonate (rather than Vinyl) and seem stiffer and don't have that vinyl stink.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 12:24 PM on August 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Best answer: After years of shitty plastic mats that wore down over time, I finally bought a glass mat (linked here) and have piece of mind it will outlive me.

Good for up to 1000 pounds and not overly slide-y for my standard Costco desk chair on wheels.
posted by Twicketface at 7:21 AM on August 23, 2021

Best answer: I had fluffy carpet and went the opposite route and replaced the casters on my chair with bigger and slicker ones, like these. They move around great on hard surfaces, too.
posted by homesickness at 1:41 PM on August 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I recently bought this Cleartex Ultimat and have been happy with it. That site has a huge selection, and won't be subject to the weird Amazon knockoff problem, which I saw in a ton of reviews when I was shopping for them. That model is for carpet up to 1/2" deep, but they have ones for thicker carpets and other shapes as well. It's very clear, reasonably rigid, stays in place well, and has a bit of texture to the surface so it's not too slippy.
posted by duien at 4:45 PM on August 23, 2021

Response by poster: update: bought a glass mat. Chair rolls beautifully on it but it moves around and I wish I'd gotten the one DrGail said above.
posted by fingersandtoes at 10:21 AM on April 6, 2022