If you need a floor covering, you have two main choices – wood floors or carpets. While carpets may be the cheap and easy option, they have so many other drawbacks that they really aren’t worth bothering with.

The main areas in which carpets fall short compared to wood floors are cleanliness and hygiene. Here are 3 of the key reasons why wood floors win every time over carpets when it comes to creating a healthy and hygienic environment in your home:

1. Easy cleaning. Carpets require  time and labour-intensive vacuuming and deep cleaning to keep clean, but to clean wood floors, all you need to do is sweep up and run a damp mop over the surface every once in a while.

2. Improved hygiene. Carpets can harbour dirt, germs, dust mites deep in the fibres of the material that no amount of vacuuming or soaping can get rid of. You simply don’t have this problem with wood floors, as there is nowhere for dirt to hide. This makes wood floors more hygienic, especially when fitted in children’s rooms.

3. No irritants or allergens to worry about. If someone in your house has allergies, you don’t want to be fitting carpets. This is because they are magnets for dust mites and other irritants, unlike wood floors which have no fibres to attract dust or other nasties.