Chair Mats and Floor Protection: Save the Carpet, Spare the Caster

Office chair mats are the least exciting thing we sell. I know that. Nobody has ever rung us in a state about a chair mat. But I look at the delivery paperwork all day, and I can tell you what wears out first in an office. It is not the chairs and it is not the desks. It is the two square metres of carpet under each chair, and then the castors that have been grinding through it.

So this is the boring maths. Short version: a £26 mat is cheaper than either of the things it protects.

What a chair mat is actually for

Three jobs, in order.

1. Carpet. A castor is a hard plastic wheel carrying a person's weight across the same 60cm patch, a few hundred times a day. Carpet pile flattens, then it frays, then it shows. Under a clear mat, it does not.

2. Castors. On carpet they fill with fibre and grit and start to drag. On hard floors they collect dust and skate. A smooth mat is the surface they were designed for, so they last longer and the chair rolls the way it did on day one.

3. Hard floors. Laminate, wood and tile scratch. Once a castor has picked up a bit of grit, every roll across the floor is sandpaper. A mat takes the scratches instead.

The Dynamic clear chair mat does all three. It is 2mm of clear PVC in two sizes, 90 by 90cm or 120 by 90cm, for £26 or £28 ex VAT. The floor still shows through, which matters if someone has just paid for the carpet.

Getting the size right

Measure where the chair actually goes, not where the desk is. Sit down, push back to stand up, and note how far the castors travel. For most people at a straight desk that is about 90cm deep, which is why the mat comes 90cm deep. Then decide on width. A 90cm mat covers one person at one desk. If the chair swings to a second screen, a printer or a pedestal, the 120cm width saves the strip of carpet at the edge that always goes first.

A few things I would check before ordering:

• Whether the mat will sit under a pedestal or cable box. It should not. Mats want to lie flat with nothing pinning one corner.

• Which way the desk faces. The mat goes long side along the desk, not sticking out into the walkway.

• Whether the floor is carpet or hard. This one is fine on both, but some mats grip one and slide on the other, so read the listing.

Standing desks want a different mat

A chair mat is hard and thin so a chair can roll. An anti-fatigue mat is the opposite. Soft and thick so a person can stand. If you have bought height adjustable desks and people have stopped using the standing half, this is usually why. Feet and knees get tired on a hard floor within an hour.

The anti-fatigue floor mat for standing desks is 99 by 51cm, 1.9cm of soft high density PU with a textured anti-slip top and bevelled edges so it is not a trip hazard. It is £40 ex VAT and black, which hides more than a clear one would. It goes in front of the desk, and when the desk comes down you push it under with your foot. Do not try to roll a chair over it. It is not for that.

Sort the castors while you are at it

If a chair has been running on bare carpet for a couple of years, the castors are probably already tired. They are a cheap fix. A set of five swivel castors is the usual fix, and if the chair lives on a hard floor and never really needs to move, a set of glides stops it wandering altogether. Both sit in our chair parts and accessories with the mats.

None of this costs much. Everything in this post, mats and castors alike, sits in our office furniture under £100. It is the cheapest line on an order and the one most people cross off first. I would leave it on.