Should I just trash my playa rugs?

[HughMungus]

I bought a pair of $20 low-pile, "commercial" rugs from Home Depot, used them on the playa, took them home and last week, washed them as best I could at a carwash place and put them in my home. I'm wondering if I should bother with these at all (or, just make them playa-only rugs). Will I ever be able to get the majority of the playa dust out of them? Is this why so many people trash their rugs each year?

[phil]

I bought a pair of $20 low-pile, "commercial" rugs from Home Depot, used them on the playa, took them home and last week, washed them as best I could at a carwash place and put them in my home. I'm wondering if I should bother with these at all (or, just make them playa-only rugs). Will I ever be able to get the majority of the playa dust out of them? Is this why so many people trash their rugs each year?

You put them _in_ your home? Yikes!

Louise and I trash pick our playa carpet. We got a couple of 8x10 foot carpets for free to put under our shade. We then dropped them off at the Reno Transfer Station with the rest of our trash and watched this monster shove them into the maw.


Hang around carpet stores and watch where they put their trash. Every time they replace someone's carpet, the workers bring it back to the store and put it in or near a dumpster. Pick a nice light color and take it home with you for the playa.

[robotland]

I have found that indoor/outdoor low-nap carpeting works GREAT for the playa, and cleans up AMAZINGLY. Just blast with the hose and drip dry. It also works great for making your own portable minigolf holes.....

[Chai Guy]

Next year I reccomend sea grass mats, they are durable, reusable, and don't hold playa dust. Just hose them off when you get home (even though virtually no playa dust sticks to them anyway) and put them in your home or store them for use on the playa next year.

(I also have a smaller turkish style carpet that is very thin that I take home and shake out and use only for the playa).

[HughMungus]

You put them _in_ your home? Yikes!

Sure. I thought that if I could wash them well enough, I could re-use them. I *hate* generating more trash than I have to and I hate the idea of throwing some carpets in a landfill if they can possibly be re-used. I guess next year I'll use some carpets that come FROM the trash which will make me not feel so bad about sending them back TO the trash.

Anyhoo, anyone think I can get these clean enough for home use? They *look* clean; I'm worried about hidden playa dust.

[robotland]

[Anyhoo, anyone think I can get these clean enough for home use? They *look* clean; I'm worried about hidden playa dust.

"Hidden playa dust" is what I call CLEAN....Anything of mine that's been out there has SOME amount of dust still on it, since you have to physically remove it by contact cleaning. If the dust doesn't show, and doesn't puff up when you walk on the carpet, call it DONE. You could try a pass with a carwash vac, if there's a decent one in your vicinity....Hang-and-beat doesn't help much.

[safetythird]

That green indoor/outdoor carpet may seem cool and easy to deal with but I spent way too much time picking up little green pieces of it. And it wasn't even mine. I only use that stuff on regular camping trips.

Carpets from the carpet store dumpster are the way to go. Mine is now 2 years old and it's fine. Dusty and dirty and full of moop that I rolled up in it, but fine. I'll just unroll it to check for mildew next year and give it a good vacuuming.

Smaller pieces are better. The 150lb piece you brought to the playa will be over 200lb when you bring it back. I'm going to cut pieces down to 5'x10' or smaller. The 10'x 18' piece is heavy and unweildy.

S3

[HughMungus]

Smaller pieces are better. The 150lb piece you brought to the playa will be over 200lb when you bring it back. I'm going to cut pieces down to 5'x10' or smaller. The 10'x 18' piece is heavy and unweildy.

S3

Yes, definitely. These rugs are 6x8 which is great until you have to clean them. You can even throw smaller rugs into a washing machine (notably, the big ones at the laundramat). The only thing I'd worry about with cutting them is that you'd increase your moop a lot because of frayed edges...unless you have some way of dealing with that. Maybe you could cauterize the new edges.

[safetythird]

Small propane torch and the ability to hold your breath for a long time.

I duct taped my edges and it came off but it was still less moopy than the astro turf.

S3

[AntiM]

We use old carpet (our kitchen was carpeted in cream when we bought the house !!), but hang on to it until it is so playafied it becomes unuseable (one piece is going on five years). They don't come into the house, we have the luxury of a detached garage, once we clean them up mnimally, they get rolled, strapped and stored. Our neighbor gave us his old carpets, six rooms worth, but it was so urine-soaked and mildewed that we paid to have it hauled off.

Be choosy when dumpster diving, mildew is bad enough, I have paranoid fantasies about the stuff stripped out of meth labs. Not all that unusual in Ogden ...

We're going to redo the basement floor, the original owner carpeted it with the cheapest indoor/outdoor he could. We're talking 33 by 12 feet of carpet! I think we'll be set for a bit.

[phil]

Next year I reccomend sea grass mats, they are durable, reusable, and don't hold playa dust.

That's interesting. I haven't googled it yet, so can you tell me more? Where you got them, what size, etc.?

Phil

[edit later: Ugh. I googled and I'm getting little rugs in the shapes of duckies, puppies, bunnies ... . Nothing that's like a large area rug.]

[phil]

Smaller pieces are better.

I'll drink to that. Louise and I look for 3 to 4 pieces so we don't have to manhandle one huge piece out of the truck, then roll it back up and manhandle it back in. Aside from the weight, you get covered in powder lugging the sucker back to the van and shoving it back in, then again when you take it out. We had two larger pieces this year, and I'll be going back to more smaller ones.

Phil

[robotland]

That green indoor/outdoor carpet may seem cool and easy to deal with but I spent way too much time picking up little green pieces of it. And it wasn't even mine. I only use that stuff on regular camping trips.

S3

Definitely do NOT use Astroturf- It's a hellish mess waiting to happen. The stuff I'm talking about is almost like coarse felt, and rendered zero MOOP unto the playa.