Gorilla Grip doormat review

This is the mat most households should start with, and the reason is the part nobody photographs: the backing. Gorilla Grip publishes a specific claim about it - a thermoplastic rubber backing that it says has been third-party tested to survive being washed and dried repeatedly, and it explicitly contrasts that with the PVC and hot-glue backings used elsewhere. That is the correct thing to make a claim about. A chenille mat's absorbency barely changes over its life; what changes is whether the backing is still flat and still gripping after the tenth wash.

The care label is strict and worth obeying literally: machine wash cold, tumble dry low, no bleach, no dry clean, and - the one people ignore - no fabric softener. Softener coats microfiber and is the single fastest way to turn an absorbent mat into a mat that pushes water around. If your household washes everything with a softener sheet in the drum, this mat will underperform and it will not be the mat's fault.

Size is the other reason it leads. Six sizes run from a 24 by 17 inch doormat up to a 70 by 24 inch runner, which means the same product can cover a single back door or the whole first three strides of a hallway. Walk-off distance is the variable that actually determines how much dirt gets stopped - the commercial matting industry sizes entry systems in feet of walk-off, not in mats - so being able to buy length matters more than most spec sheets suggest.

The catch is clearance. Gorilla Grip does not publish a pile height for this mat, and a dense chenille pile is not a low-profile pile. If it is going behind an inward-opening door with a standard half-inch to three-quarter-inch undercut, measure first - see our door clearance guide. The maker also states this is indoor only and specifically not recommended for concrete, which rules out the garage-door and unfinished-basement placements people often want it for.

This is the mat that makes the premium argument awkward, and it is worth being clear about why. Gorilla Grip publishes two figures on this listing: a 0.28-inch profile and a capacity of up to six cups of water. Two numbers is more than most of this category will give you, and both of them are the numbers that decide a purchase - whether the door clears it, and whether it holds anything.

Run the second figure out to the unit the commercial mat world uses and the result is uncomfortable for the expensive end of the shelf. Six cups across a 29 by 17 inch mat works out to roughly one gallon per square yard, which is the same figure the residential WaterHog publishes for itself. That is one maker's claim measured against another maker's claim, with no stated method behind either, so it is not proof that they perform identically. It is enough to say the cheap mat is not obviously in a different class on the one property both brands chose to quantify.

The 0.28 inches matter more than the capacity for most households. A standard interior door is hung with roughly half an inch to three-quarters of an inch of clearance, so this mat clears even the tight end of that range - and you can know that before it arrives instead of after. Almost nothing else in this hub can be bought with that certainty; see low-profile mats and door clearance for the full table.

Where it genuinely gives ground is depth and weather. A flat woven face is not a deep chenille pile, so a soaked dog shaking on it will overwhelm it in a way it will not overwhelm a chenille absorber, and the maker states this is indoor only. Buy it as the mat immediately inside a door with a tight gap. Do not buy it as the mat that dries a wet retriever, and do not put it outside.

This mat has one job and it is not absorbency. It is a woven top bonded to a natural rubber backing, and the assembly sheds water rather than holding it. That sounds like a weakness until you have owned an absorbent outdoor mat through a wet November and discovered that what you actually own is a permanently saturated sponge that keeps the water at your threshold instead of away from it.

Outside the door, waterproof beats absorbent every time. Water needs to run off the mat and away; grit needs somewhere to fall out of the tread. Gorilla Grip builds this one with deep grooves, a beveled rubber border and what it calls a retention dam, then it cleans with a hose in thirty seconds - the cleaning method people will genuinely perform, unlike hauling a soaked outdoor mat into a washing machine.

Gorilla Grip also specifies stain and fade resistance, which matters more outdoors than most buyers expect. UV is what turns a black rubber mat chalky gray in a single summer, and a mat that has gone gray and stiff has usually also gone brittle around the edges.

The thing this mat cannot do is finish the job. It is stage one of a layered system - scrape outside, absorb inside. Pair it with a chenille mat immediately in from the door and you have the household version of what commercial buildings have used for decades. Buy it as the only mat and you will have clean boot treads and wet floors. Our coir versus chenille versus rubber comparison sets out which material belongs at which position.

Weight is the specification that changes when a mat goes from doormat size to five feet across. A small mat is held down by the furniture of the doorway itself; a 60 by 36 inch mat has fifteen square feet of unsupported middle, and the only things stopping it creeping and curling are its own mass and its backing. At about six and a half pounds this is the second heaviest here, and it feels it.

The surface is the other reason it leads. Gorilla Grip describes a raised ribbed topside with deep grooves and calls the mat waterproof rather than absorbent - which is the correct design for a wide opening that faces outward. Ribs scrape the tread, the grooves hold what comes off below the walking surface, and nothing soaks up and stays wet across an area that big.

That also defines what it is not. A waterproof mat sheds water instead of holding it, so on its own it leaves clean treads and a wet floor beyond it. Our indoor versus outdoor comparison sets out why most entries want one of each; at double-door width, the mat inside is the one doing the absorbing.

The published gap is thickness. Not one mat in this size class publishes a pile height, and this one is no exception, which matters because a door with a low sweep over a 36-inch depth of mat has nowhere to hide. If your door clears less than about half an inch, the figures in our door clearance guide are the place to start and a physical test with a folded towel is the place to finish.