Your commercial flooring must be designed to allow for a safe, effective working environment irrespective of the weather, and one of the biggest concerns at nearly all times of the year is the risk of slips and trips.
The Health and Safety Executive has published a very useful paper on measuring slip resistance, exploring ways to minimise what is the most common cause of injuries in the workplace, but it is important to know how commercial floors stop slips.
Some flooring systems are designed to inherently reduce slips, such as grooved and textured rubber mats, but most surfaces can be made less slippery through the use of coatings and treatments.
Which one is right for you? To find out, here are the principles behind slip resistance, when a grooved surface is not enough and the pros and cons of some common types of anti-slip coating.
How Does Commercial Flooring Prevent Slips?
The fundamental principle behind all anti-slip flooring solutions is ensuring there is enough friction between the soles of your shoes and the surface itself.
Many flooring solutions, such as carpets, rugs, entrance mats and other textured flooring, naturally provide some friction, but they are not always perfect in every situation.
Anti-slip flooring is typically designed to avoid the following hazards:
- Spills causing slip hazards
- Oil and grease contamination reducing traction
- The formation of ice or compacted snow
- Slip and trip hazards caused by wear and tear
- Uneven flooring and hidden trip hazards
Some conventional flooring solutions and routine maintenance can help with some of these problems but not all of them, leaving commercial anti-slip flooring the best option for ensuring safety in high-traffic or high-risk areas.
How Do Anti-Slip Treatments Work?
In general, anti-slip treatments work by adding a microtexture to the surface it is applied to, typically using a combination of a fine aggregate material combined with an epoxy resin binder.
Together, they not only provide an abrasive, solid traction akin to sandpaper, but also break the films of oil that could form, retain traction even in water and are tweakable for different environments.
There are many different systems designed with varying environments, base flooring and traffic density in mind, but here are the four main coatings to consider.
Anti-Slip Paint
A textured paint that consists of a hard-wearing, long-lasting paint mixed with a fine aggregate, it provides a very cost-effective and quick-to-apply coating, although as with any other paint, it may be susceptible to wear and tear and require multiple layers for maximum effect.
Anti-Slip Epoxy
A more involved system, this involves the application of a layer of epoxy resin binder, across which aggregate is scattered before the entire system is sealed.
The result is a very hard-wearing flooring surface perfect for workspaces where contamination from oil and grease is all but inevitable.
Polyurethane Coatings
Similar in concept to epoxy, but the resin is replaced with polyurethane, a resin-like material that
has much greater UV resistance and can withstand greater temperatures.
Anti-Slip Tape
An instant fix, you can buy tapes which provide an abrasive surface, which is commonly used on the edges of stairs.
