carpet tiles?

We've been trying to figure out what we're going to do with the old grungy carpet in our basement. We visited the local hardware store and were pretty shocked to see that they charge about $20/yard and that doesn't include the cost of the pad or installation. Yikes. So it looks like an online purchase might fit our pocketbook best.

One of the things that caught my attention were carpet tiles. They look neat and they sound promising, but will they stay in place? Everything that I have read says that if you place them wall to wall (which we would) that they stay in place pretty good. But we've got small children and a dog that like to really "tear it up" from time to time, so I wonder how carpet tiles would fare. I just don't like the idea of paying a bunch of money for new carpet and then having the water heater overflow again at some time in the future. We tried to have a drip pan installed, but there was no place to drain it to, as the level of the water heater is below ground. We would have had to dig a trench outside and punch a hole in the wall to get it to drain properly.

That's what I liked about the idea of carpet tiles. If they get wet, you just pull them up and dry them out in the sun. There's very little fear of mold growth as you can see that the carpet tiles are dry before you place them back on the floor.

The pad is essentially built in, so that worries me a little. I'm not so sure that these carpet tiles would be as thick as regular carpet, and seeing as we'd be placing them on concrete it might not be so fun for my kids. But I do like the idea of mixing and matching colors and patterns for a more visually appealing carpet design. There are some real bargains online but like any other online order of this magnitude we'll have to order some samples first.