Carpet tiles for offices
An office floor has to survive continuous castor traffic, absorb enough sound to make open-plan tolerable, and be replaceable in patches without closing the floor.
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Castor chairs do the damage
Nothing in an office wears flooring faster than a wheeled chair pushed back and pulled in forty times a day at a fixed desk position. It is a concentrated, repeated, rotational load in one spot.
Specify continuous castor chair rating — every range here carries it — and choose a dense, fine construction. Tessera Chroma at 750 g/m² and Infused at 720 g/m² are the densest tufted options; Flotex, being flocked rather than looped, has no pile to crush at all, which is an under-appreciated advantage at desk clusters.
Specify a quarter-turn layout. When a desk cluster wears, tiles can be lifted and swapped, and on a quarter-turn floor the replacement disappears.
Open-plan lives or dies on acoustics
Open-plan offices fail on noise more often than anything else, and flooring is one of the few elements that addresses both airborne absorption and impact noise.
The Tessera range spans 17 to 27 dB impact sound reduction. That is a wide spread and it is worth choosing deliberately:
| 27 dB — best in range | Layout, Outline, Topology, Twine |
|---|---|
| 26 dB | Chroma, Infused |
| 25 dB | Cloudscape, Create Space 1, Inline, Perspective |
| 19 dB | All Flotex ranges |
| 17 dB | Struktur 1 |
A floor alone will not fix an open-plan acoustic problem — ceiling absorption and screen placement matter more — but a hard floor will guarantee one.
Access floors and build height
Most UK office refurbishments sit on a raised access floor, with build-up height constrained by an existing door set or lift threshold nobody wants to alter.
The slim options: Create Space 1 at 5.5mm, Layout and Teviot at 5.7mm, Outline at 5.8mm, and all Flotex at 5.0–5.3mm.
On an access floor use a tackifier, not permanent adhesive — panels have to lift for services access, and a bonded tile turns that into a demolition job.
Zoning an agile floorplate
- Colour blocking — Layout and Teviot carry 32 colourways each, so a whole zoning scheme comes from one product code.
- Field and accent — Layout as the field with Outline marking collaboration areas. Same construction, same build height, no transition detail.
- Direction — planks along a route, turned at a threshold. People follow it without noticing. Layout & Outline planks or Teviot Phase.
- Flotex at the tea point. The one place in an office that genuinely gets wet, and the one place a carpet tile consistently fails.
Shortlist
| Best all-round default | Layout — 32 colours, 5.7mm, 27 dB, 62% recycled |
|---|---|
| Highest recycled content | Topology — 76%, carbon negative yarn |
| Densest / heaviest traffic | Chroma — 750 g/m² |
| Slimmest for access floors | Create Space 1 — 5.5mm, 75% recycled ECONYL |
| Design-led / client-facing | Contour cut-and-loop, or Twine |
| Tea points and wet zones | Flotex — any range |
Frequently asked questions
What is the best carpet tile for an office?
Specify continuous castor chair rating and a dense construction. Tessera Layout is the strongest all-round default — 32 colourways, 5.7mm for access floors, 27 dB acoustics and 62% recycled content. Chroma is denser if traffic is the priority.
Do carpet tiles help office acoustics?
Substantially, particularly for impact noise. Tessera ranges span 17–27 dB impact sound reduction, so choose deliberately rather than assuming they are equivalent.
Can carpet tiles go over an access floor?
Yes, and it is the standard UK office arrangement. Use a tackifier so panels can lift, and pick a slim range if build height is constrained.
Should I use Flotex in an office?
In the tea points, canteen and any wet zone, yes — it is the one place carpet tile consistently fails. Across the general floorplate, Tessera usually wins on cost and acoustics.