Cabin Refurbs: DIY Carpeting

Owners of aging aircraft are forever spending money on refurbishments and upkeep. We wash off summer bugs to preserve the paint, chase oil streaks along the belly, and spend staggering amounts of money on the latest electronics.

Meanwhile, seats fade, side panels age, and many cabins still wear the same carpet they left the factory with some 40 or 50 years ago. Eventually, every interior reaches the point where no amount of vacuuming can make it look new again. That is where we found ourselves with our family’s Cessna T310R. We decided to start the interior refresh project with new carpet and chose SCS Interiors in Minnesota to have a replacement kit made for a DIY installation.

Research and Phone Calls

I began by looking through the flooring kits on the SCS Interiors website. The company covers an impressive number of aircraft, but I quickly realized a phone call would be necessary. SCS provides free samples and sells raw uncut material that meets FAA 23.853 horizontal burn requirement.

While we think the SCS kits are reasonably priced, the install is something to get right the first time since it is likely going to spend a few decades in the airplane. Before making the call, we wanted to understand the options. SCS offers five flooring materials: featherweight carpet, nylon carpet, wool carpet, Denali vinyl, and woven vinyl. There’s also an option for Ensolite, a quarter-inch closed-cell foam backing intended to reduce noise and vibration. On our 310R, Ensolite added about $225 to the order. For what it costs and the benefits it adds, there seems no logical reason to skip it.

From there, the remaining decisions are color and whether to use matching or contrasting nylon binding. With my wife and me in agreement on the color—arguably one of the biggest decisions in the process—I called SCS. They collected the aircraft’s tail number, serial number, year, make, model and variant, then walked me through the flooring choices. Featherweight carpet is intended for aircraft where every pound of useful load matters. Nylon is the more conventional option. Denali and woven vinyl are built for especially wet, dirty, or cold operating environments. For our typical family traveling in the airplane, SCS recommended nylon. We went with sand-colored carpet, matching binding, and Ensolite backing. SCS was helpful and thorough, answering every question I had about what most customers order and why.

Not so fast—the order was not ready to be cut quite yet. The next step was confirming the pattern for our airplane. Rather than sending a full-size paper template, SCS provided a three-page production drawing showing the individual flooring pieces and an extensive set of measurements. The level of detail on that drawing is worth a close focus. Every individual piece carries its own set of dimensions, and the notes get specific down to fractions of an inch. It is an impressive amount of precision for something that spends its life under a pilot’s shoes, and it is a big part of why the fit came out as close as it did. I printed it and brought it to the airplane with a tape measure and pen. SCS warned that aircraft of the same make, model, and year can still turn up small interior differences, and that it sometimes takes more than one round of measurements to get the pattern right. We got lucky. The first drawing matched our airplane almost exactly, with the largest discrepancy measuring less than one-quarter of an inch, likely a measuring mistake on my part. Once the measurements were confirmed, SCS took payment and placed the order. Lead time was quoted at two to four weeks. About three weeks later, the new carpet arrived on my doorstep.

Timing the project around an annual inspection is worth considering. Give yourself several weeks of lead time before the inspection: roughly three weeks for the kit to arrive, additional time for the measurement review, and some margin in case the pattern requires another round of confirmation. Because the interior comes out during the annual anyway, it is a natural time to make the swap without creating another period of downtime. It is also worth understanding SCS’s cancellation and fit policies before you order, since this is a custom-cut product. Cancel within 48 hours or before the material is cut and you get a full refund; cancel after cutting but before shipment and they may refund up to half. Once it ships, the sale is final. Fit issues need to be reported within 90 days with photos so SCS can work toward a resolution, though return shipping is on you. For my Cessna 310, the finished kit came to roughly $1,250 before tax and shipping.

DIY Carpet: How You Might Choose

For owners venturing into a DIY cabin refresh, one of the more approachable projects is interior carpet. The natural first step is a web search, which quickly turns up numerous companies that you’ll have to sort through. Many work within the airline market, and others focus on GA and corporate cabins. Among them we found SCS Interiors, Airtex, SER-Mat, and Generation Global. If you have experience with other carpet suppliers, we want to hear about it.

We chose SCS Interiors in Minnesota because the company had a pattern already on file for our airplane, a high-quality website, and a phone that was answered immediately when we called. As with any product or service, that struck us as a good early sign of the customer service to expect.

How you choose is going to come down to more than price. Based on our experience, a company worth trying starts with good guidance on the phone rather than a generic order form, the ability to produce a genuinely accurate production drawing rather than a rough template, and a willingness to stand behind the fit after the fact. None of that replaces your own end of the job. The final product is only as good as the measurements behind it, and it is worth taking that part of the project as seriously as the company does.

Unboxing the Carpet

The carpet arrived in a long, narrow box. The carpet and Ensolite backing are separate pieces and do not arrive bonded together, and everything is tightly rolled for shipping. The instructions call for laying the pieces flat for 24 to 48 hours before installation; I left mine out for a full week.

SCS includes a printed installation guide with the kit, and it is worth reading from start to finish before touching a spray can. To bond the Ensolite to the back of each carpet piece, SCS specifies 3M trim adhesive and lists three acceptable products: 3M #08088 General Trim Adhesive, 3M #38808 Headliner and Fabric Adhesive, or 3M #94 High Strength Spray Adhesive.

Their rule of thumb is one can for a four-seat aircraft and two cans for anything larger. With six seats nominally available in the 310R, I bought two. One instruction is worth calling out: Do not glue the Ensolite directly to the aircraft floor. It is held in place with Velcro instead, so the adhesive’s only job is bonding the Ensolite to the carpet, not the carpet to the airframe. That split matters because it allows the flooring to come back out later for maintenance, inspections, or cleaning.

Installing It

I met with my mechanic and removed the four installed seats. The fifth and sixth seats are rarely installed in our airplane, so that area remains open for luggage. With a bare-bones cabin, I wiped the existing floor down with rubbing alcohol and allowed it to dry before installing anything new.

Before any adhesive came out, SCS has you dry-fit every piece, both to check the fit and to mark exactly where the Velcro strips needed to go. Bonding the Ensolite to the back of each carpet piece came next. The technique itself was simple: Peel the paper backing off the Ensolite, spray both surfaces with the 3M adhesive, let it flash until tacky, and press the two together. The harder part was finding a clean, open space to actually do the spraying, since adhesive and a dusty hangar floor do not mix well. I ended up doing the adhesive work in my garage rather than the hangar, where it was easier to keep dust away from the glue. I repeated the process four times, once for each piece.

Back in the airplane, Velcro goes on next in most installations. If existing Velcro remains on the floor from the old carpet, the opposing side goes on the new flooring; for a first-time install, SCS has you mark the attachment points and adhere strips to both the floor and the Ensolite, scuffing vinyl lightly with a Scotch-Brite pad first for good adhesion. SCS includes the material either way. Our old carpet never used a Velcro system, and the new pieces fit so snugly under the side panels that we did not see the need to add it. With the interior currently out for annual inspection, we may still add the strips before everything goes back together.

Three out of four pieces dropped straight into place. The only hiccup came from my own oversight. The original carpet included openings for the fifth- and sixth-seat mounts that were not reflected on the new kit because I missed them during the measurement review. Marking and trimming those openings with an X-Acto knife took about an hour, and once the seats were reinstalled the cuts disappeared completely. We also did a small amount of trimming around the rudder pedals (which SCS’s instructions flag as a possible extra step) to keep the carpet clear of the mechanisms. Both fixes were barely noticeable once everything went back together: The rudder pedal areas sit deep enough to be out of sight, and the rear-seat cuts disappear beneath the seats once reinstalled.

Before reinstalling the seats, we vacuumed the cabin and the new carpet to remove loose fibers and debris from the trimming work. That is a step worth planning for, as I had to return home to get a vacuum cleaner. After that, we reinstalled the seats, completed the required maintenance record entry, and called the project finished.

Excluding the time spent laying the carpet flat and allowing the adhesive to cure, the hands-on installation took about two and a half hours. Nearly an hour of that was spent locating and cutting the rear-seat openings. SCS calls for 24 hours before the adhesive is considered fully cured; for aircraft using the supplied Velcro strips, that bond needs the same curing time. Either way, it is worth planning around if the airplane needs to return to service on a tight schedule.

Family Testing

The carpet has been in for about a month and flown roughly 35 hours, offering a decent look at durability so far. The Ensolite backing has proved worthwhile. It gives the carpet a more substantial, finished feel underfoot and adds a layer of insulation between the cabin and the aircraft floor. It is difficult to isolate exactly how much noise reduction came from the backing, but the cabin does feel less hollow than it did with the old carpet. The closest comparison is upgraded carpet padding in a house: It is hidden once installed, but it changes how the finished floor feels. At $225 for our airplane, it was one of the easiest decisions in the order.

We travel with a baby and a dog, eat meals in the airplane more often than we probably should, and used the 310 for a lake-house trip, AirVenture, and several FBO stops along the way. We aren’t gentle. The carpet saw spilled milk, baby food, lunch crumbs, mud, dirt, and dust. We also pulled the carpeting back out a month later for the annual inspection. The carpet has held up remarkably well against the abuse we have put it through in the short time so far. A household vacuum handled the dirt and crumbs, and a wet rag took care of marks left by dirty shoes and dropped food. After a month of hard use, the carpet still looks close to new. Being able to remove individual sections should also make cleaning easier down the road. If one piece eventually becomes badly stained, it can be removed and cleaned separately without disturbing the rest of the cabin—a huge benefit.

There was one benefit I did not expect. Most legacy aircraft have that distinct and famous “old airplane smell.” I always chalked it up to just being an old airplane thing. In fact, leaving a headset case in the cabin for a few weeks and then carrying it into work would always bring that all too familiar old-airplane smell along with it. The new carpet seems to have solved that. Looking back through the logbooks, the old carpet was original, putting it at nearly 50 years old. Everything that had lived in that cabin for five decades was riding along with it.

Project Reflections

It’s easy to say that SCS Interiors delivers a high-quality aftermarket carpet kit. The ordering process was more thorough than simply selecting a color and clicking the Buy tab. The measurement review helped make sure the carpet was correct before it was cut, and the resulting fit was impressively precise. I highly recommend a phone call to place the order, as you will get very customized support and answers.

Installation was straightforward and easy. After a busy month carrying a baby, a dog, luggage, food, and all the mess that comes with family travel, the nylon carpet shows no signs of wear. The price feels right, too. As noted, the kit for my Cessna 310R was roughly $1,250 before tax and shipping, which is reasonable for what you get. Pricing will vary by aircraft and kit, so treat ours as a data point rather than a quote.

One thing worth noting is that this kit covers flooring only, not side panels or seats. Once the new carpet was installed, it made the age of our side panels and seats much more obvious. After a carpet refresh, a sidewall project tends to jump to the top of the priority list—ask me how I know.

If I did the project again, I would compare every opening in the old carpet against the production drawing, even for seats or equipment that are rarely installed. I would also have an X-Acto knife, a pair of high-quality scissors, and a vacuum beside the airplane before starting. This is a solid product from a company that did what it said it would do. We plan to revisit the carpet portion of our cabin refurbishment field report in six to twelve months, after another hundred hours of use and a full winter and spring of family travel.