Cabinets are an essential part of any home setting as they are typically used to store items such as cups, cutlery, or even sweaters and socks. Despite their storage flexibility, cabinets make annoying noises when being shut, causing an emotional disturbance for ordinary homeowners. To mitigate such upsetting noises, homeowners normally turn to cabinet bumpers.
Felt cabinet bumpers are cheaper and offer more noise reduction than rubber cabinet bumpers. However, they accumulate dust quicker and tend to be less durable than rubber during repeated opening and closing cycles.
In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at the differences between felt and rubber cabinet, delve into the potential benefits of both products, and look at some considerations to make before purchasing any of them.
What Are Bumpers?
Essentially, bumpers are fairly inexpensive accessories that mitigate loud noises when you slam your furniture’s doors like cabinets. Referred to as sound-dampening cabinet stops, they also save cabinets from all types of damage over time and are available at most home improvement stores and some grocery stores.
Bumpers are typically round, or rectangular accessories stuck on the interior of a cabinet door or drawer and are known to reduce sound when users vigorously shut their doors significantly.
Ordinarily, just sticking a bumper on each corner of a cabinet can have significant sound reduction results. Though, in most instances, you can still hear the door shut, but it’s not a very loud “clank”. Without bumpers, cabinets often noisily vibrate when they are closed.
Ironically, most older kitchen cabinets came installed with bumpers on the corners and bathroom drawers to soften the impact when closing them. However, these bumpers usually wear down and come off over time, and most people forget to replace them.
The two most common types of cabinet bumpers are felt and rubber cabinet bumpers, so let’s see how they compare against each other using particular benchmarks.
Felt vs. Rubber Cabinet Bumpers (Comparison)
Material Composition
Typically, material composition defines the durability of a product. This means that bumpers not made with strong material don’t survive in the long run. Rubber cabinet bumpers are the most durable type and can survive all the slams for years.
As you slam cabinet doors hard, these bumpers will guard the cabinet as a barrier in the middle so that the force does not directly hit the furniture itself. However, despite felt cabinet bumpers being considered softer, don’t mistake their softness for lack of overall strength.
Felt can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur or synthetic fibers like petroleum-based acrylic or acrylonitrile or wood pulp-based rayon.
Sound Dampening Properties
This is an interesting performance benchmark and is arguable for many people. As an overall assessment, felt cabinet bumpers tend to be quieter. Felt absorbs impact shock and sound better than rubber when closing cabinets, slide doors, or drawers and has more versatility as it can be used to protect other surface finishes from scratches.
Overall Durability
As a popular opinion, more people feel like the felt bumpers get gunkier with time. However, rubber bumpers might be more prone to chipping away over time.
Nonetheless, all these options offer good cushioning, but the rubber tends to be more durable than felt when it comes to repeated opening and closing.
The other drawback with felt bumpers is that they aren’t really waterproof and pick up dust more easily.
Installation
Both cabinet bumper types are pretty easy to apply. Users can peel off the back and stick them on the cabinet’s inside corner to buffer the cabinet frame’s door. This will ensure that they strongly adhere to the door with no extra work for you.
Generally, they are frequently attached to the door using an adhesive backing. However, this may fall off or wear down over time. On the other hand, there are also bumpers available that are permanently affixed to the door, usually by drilling a small hole in which the bumper can rest.
Thickness
Felt cabinet bumpers are generally a little thicker than most rubber bumpers and tend to blend in well with darker cabinets.
Cost
Generally speaking, felt cabinet bumpers are slightly cheaper than rubber cabinet bumpers. This could be attributed to their overall durability and strength.
Points to Consider Before Purchasing Cabinet Bumpers
Since we’ve uncovered the differences between both products, we can now take a look at the features you should consider before purchasing any cabinet bumper.
The Number of Bumper Pads
Everyone loves more. Typically, most pads come with a wide number of bumper pads in one set, while others will disappoint you as they come with few bumper pads in each pack.
Cabinet bumper pads come with about 50 to 60 pads in a set. However, to get value for money, ensure you go for at least 100 in a set. Unfortunately, we can’t expect them all to be functional. But the majority should be optimally functional and usable on not just cabinets, but in other areas too. For instance, you can put them on your glass tabletops, under your keyboard, etc.
Grip
In practice, the stronger the bumper, the better. If your bumper pads do not have strong grips, they won’t stick on your cabinet door for long. So, the pads you’re purchasing should be self-adhesive, and also ensure that these grips do not create any permanent spot on your furniture after you peel them off.
Type
We have only touched two types of cabinet bumpers in this article. However, more types exist, such as a polymer, polyurethane, and gel-polymer bumper types. The type of cabinet bumper you choose should entirely depend on the surface you will be using the bumper on.
Remember that not all the cabinet bumpers stick to all kinds of surfaces, so ensure to choose an appropriate material according to the furniture surfaces you have at home. However, most rubber bumpers are self-adhesive and efficiently stick while lasting longer.
Color
While many people love colorful bumper pads, being colorful isn’t always a great thing. It can ruin the look of your décor or overshadow the interior design of your furniture.
So, it’s recommended to choose bumpers with water droplet-like colors as they are transparent and blend in perfectly with your furniture’s color. Essentially, they are virtually invisible to the human eye and can easily go unnoticed.
Size
This is one of the major factors you should keep in mind when shopping for cabinet bumpers. Packets of bumpers will typically have a label of the size on them. You will also find several brands that offer different sizes in these pads.
It’s recommended to always go for smaller bumpers, as they allow more versatility. They also tend to have the utmost adhesive capabilities.
In some cases, you can also choose a packet that comes with various bumper sizes to allow you to use them on different surfaces affordably.
Installation
Finally, as you’re shopping, be keen to pay attention to the bumpers’ adhesive properties. You don’t want to purchase a bumper that requires the application of glue to stick to the surface. This can create an untidy space, and the extra work can be frustrating.
So, always choose self-adhesive bumpers that come peeled with glue, so all you have to do is unpeel them and then stick to the surface. Ensure to choose cabinet door bumpers that are easy to install and take off as well.
Conclusion
Cabinet door slams can make anyone cringe, so cabinet bumpers play a subtle but important role in any peaceful home. However, there are a few other ways to maintain your cabinets while keeping them functioning efficiently and quietly, such as using self-close cabinet hinges and soft-close dampers.
Finding the right cabinet bumpers is a task of its own. All you need to do is note the points we have shared in this article, and you’ll be good to go.
