Using flooring material as chair mat??
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Mr SK has an office style chair (with wheels) at his desk, and there's carpeting there, which makes it hard to move the chair around. He originally got a traditional plastic mat thing, but it was too thin and would sink so the chair wheels don't really roll any better.
I actually have something like this in my home office, on carpet
https://www.amazon.com/Anji-Mountain-Chairmats-Anti-Slip-Multi-Purpose/dp/B0D6G6NLCW/ref=sr_1_7
It works mostly fine. But now they are all quite expensive, much more than when I got mine.
So he's thinking of going to Lowes and buying a box of interlocking floor boards, the wide plank (fake wood) kind. There are tons of options, and it seems like if he got something that was 10mm thick, it ought to work and maybe be a third of the price.
Does anyone have any other suggestions, or things we might not be thinking of that would cause problems doing this?
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... he's thinking of going to Lowes and buying a box of interlocking floor boards, the wide plank (fake wood) kind.
I have been using a setup like that for 10~15 years. For the most part, yeah, it works. But you need to additionally secure the boards together or the interlocking mechanism will give and the boards will separate. Also, it slips over time -- depending on the direction of the carpet fiber, the whole thing will shift ever so slightly, such that you have to realign it every few days.
To secure the boards together, I use long Velcro tapes. I think duct tape would have worked too, I used Velcro because I had extra supply of it and I was hoping Velcro may help the boards "grip" the carpet better to mitigate slipping. But it still slips. If Mr. SK finds a better solution, I would love to know.
Good luck!
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Have one of the rigid wood-look chair mats on carpet, a Costco purchase. Despite the fact that it has a slightly textured back, it still moves around as @Axtremus has described. The other thing that I find to be a pain is that the chair rolls around too easily and I feel like the slightest movement makes the chair move when I don't want it to.
We used to have a clear, slightly flexible plastic/polycarb chair mat with gripper teeth on the back. It had a little more texture on the top so the chair didn't "float" around as easily, and those gripper teeth were very effective. And very pointy, almost like a thorn. A bitch to set up, but once it was in place, it didn't budge. It lasted a long time (years and years), but because it was not rigid, it would flex downward a little into the carpet and it got tons of little cracks from a person sitting in the chair and moving it around. Eventually it cracked all the way through and I replaced it with the one we have.
The best arrangement is to have a rolling chair on commercial carpet that isn't pile but rather looped. You get a little resistance with respect to rolling, but it's still much easier than moving on a thicker carpet.
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That flooring will work best if you stick it to a piece of plywood.
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Thank you everyone!!!
@Axtremus he will be very happy to hear that you're doing what he wants to do and that it works ok!
@wtg he doesn't want to try another see-through one. I actually have to reposition mine somewhat regularly, it's not the end of the world.
I think we don't want to deal with changing the carpet in that room, not any time soon at least.
@Steve-Miller so you mean, a piece of plywood on the carpet, then the floor boards?
