Stainfree Panache by Abingdon Flooring

I was fairly critical of Abingdon’s relaunched Stainfree Twist earlier this year, but another new launch of theirs, Stainfree Panache seems a lot more promising.

Shown above is the gorgeous Damson colour, which is clearly the standout colour of the range. Used in promotional literature and the top sample in the sample book, it’s today’s colour (apparently).

The carpet itself handles nicely, a sumptuous saxony – fairly dense and fairly thick made from 100% polypropylene. It feels smooth and comfortable and will grace the master bedroom nicely, I imagine.

One bonus here is that it is 4m and 5m wide and there is a shortage of saxonies available wider width, so this is a welcome addition on that front.

As usual Abingdon cover it with their 10 Year Wear and Stainfree Warranty (if you care about such things), but with reasonable care this carpet should perform well enough in the medium to long term. It will, like all longer pile carpets, flatten over time but that’s the price you pay for longer pile carpets!

It should go out between £17 and £22 per square metre, which is about right for this carpet in my opinion – decent value.

(Originally posted on 11th December 2009)

Abingdon? You’re Having A Laugh

At one time, Abingdon were one of our biggest suppliers of carpet. That was when they were known as Carpets International. We would stock many rolls of a lot of their ranges, take their display stands and do very well with them.

That now seems like a long time ago (it was only about 7 years back). Yesterday I acquired their new sampling for the revamped (?) Stainfree Twist, Stainfree Heather and Stainfree Tweed ranges they run and what a massive disappointment they are.

Used to Sell Well

First off, a word to Abingdon about their samples – display stands tend to be 18″ wide or 27″ wide. Nine inch wide samples fit on these stands nicely, look good and sell the product. However, if you make them nine and a half inches wide, they look crap and don’t sell the product. Very careless of whoever made that decision. Now they don’t look the best on our display racks.

So to the carpet itself. Well the colours are certainly plentiful and varied and Abingdon certainly still believe in colour – it isn’t all beige and brown thankfully. The feel of this carpet though is unimpressive given its price. I’d say it will retail between £14.99 – £18.99 per metre and frankly for that money it is poor value. Talk all you like about the warranty, but the fact is that most comparable companies now offer similar warranties and at a lower price.

Wilkies Carpets list the pile weight as being 35oz for Stainfree Twist and 33oz for Stainfree Heather and Stainfree Tweed. Compare that with Shepherd Twist by Balta at 45oz and likely to retail for less and Stain Defender by Domo at 40oz which will retail for way less. There are ranges aplenty that outscore these and Abingdon are merely trading on the brand name here.

One plus point is that it can be ordered 2m, 3m, 4m and 5m wide, but realistically the orders for us at least will be few and far between. I’ve put it out on the racks, but it looks well beaten by the other ranges either side of it.

It isn’t a crappy carpet, but it’s really not worth the kind of money you will be asked for it in my opinion. Oh and if you are offered Stainfree Style instead of these three ranges then I’d say avoid it – it’s a poor replacement and some colours are the same so be careful for unscrupulous traders trying to pass of the lightweight Stainfree Style (26oz) for the heavier weight Stainfree Twist.

At least it’s made in the UK though.

(Originally posted on 1st May 2009)

Stainfree Destiny from Abingdon

Abingdon have unveiled a couple of new budget twists (should sell between £10-£15m) in Stainfree Destiny and Stainfree Essentials.

Destiny is the cheaper of the two and is available in felt or secondary back (unusual for Abingdon). Here is an image of the standout colour for me, which is ‘Zebra’.

Essentials is a wee bit heavier and handles a lot better. We’ve priced it £2 per metre more than Destiny and it looks well worth it I would say. Neither carpet is especially ground-breaking, but Abingdon’s ranges seem to crop up in many retailer showrooms and are distributed widely by Headlam.

The samples we have say 4m wide only, but I’m not sure if they are available direct from Abingdon in multi-width cuts – as they do with most of the Stainfree range.

As per usual, they carry the now ubiquitous ’10 year’ warranty info as well as the new ‘Clean Air’ branding, to convince us that apparently after all carpet is way better for us all than smooth floor with regard to allergies. Forgive me if I’m not yet convinced of the science behind that claim.

Overall then a decent couple of low-mid price British made carpets in a saturated market for this kind of stuff. Personally I prefer the likes of Stainbuster and Weaver’s Twist from Domo, or Carousel from Condor Carpets.

(Originally posted on 14th April 2009)