Slips, trips and falls are a costly public health problem in Australia costing an estimated $4 billion annually. Flooring contractors must comply with their ‘Duty of Care’ to ensure that surfaces are fit for purpose and do not pose a safety risk.
Slips and trips can happen anywhere, at any time, to anyone. It’s important to address the slip resistance and maintenance of floors to prevent such accidents and enhance floor safety.
The diversity of slip resistant floors on offer means that there is a solution for any environment, whether it’s a shopping centre’s food court, prone to dropped snacks and fizzy drinks or a heavy manufacturing plant that needs to account for oils, greases and fuel.
To help you choose a safe floor for your facility, we’ve answered some of the most commonly asked questions about anti-slip flooring.
1. What are the key benefits of anti-slip flooring?
Anti slip flooring offers several benefits to protect the employee and employer, such as:
Prevention of slip and fall accidents thereby avoiding litigation thus saving cost
Safe working environment for staff and visitors thus increasing productivity
Minimum or no disruption to business during application
Reduces administration costs and protects the reputation of the facility or build.
2. What is slip resistance?
Slip resistance is the roughness of a floor that creates positive traction and reduces the possibility of slipping and falling.
In order to understand slip resistance, a metric is used to gauge the slipperiness of a floor. The coefficient of friction (COF) may be defined as the force necessary to hold two materials together (the foot and the floor) and the maximum force necessary to resist sliding.
3. What are the critical points to remember during cleaning?
For some projects, a less aggressive slip resistance is needed with a greater focus on its cleanability. The more aggressive the slip resistance of the floor, the harder it will be to clean.
This is due to the aggregate that is broadcast onto the coating of an aggressive slip resistant component being larger and more angular. The more angular the profile of the floor surface, the more difficult it can be to clean. Challenges arise when a more aggressive slip resistance such as R12 is needed – cleaning equipment such as a mop will be torn to shreds in this instance.
4. What factors influence the slip resistance of a floor?
Testing floors and surfaces in situ can identify a number of factors that influence the slip resistance of flooring materials: e.g. cleaning regime, maintenance, contamination, deterioration due to wear and traffic pattern.
5. What are the commonly used anti-slip test methods?
There are various different test methods used around the world to determine the anti-slip level however the most common methods are:
Oily Ramp Method
As described as an option in Australian Standard 4586-2013. This is a laboratory only test and can only apply to new material surfaces intended to be installed in or on a pedestrian walkway.
Instead of water, an amount of motor oil is placed on the test surface and two test persons wear safety boots rather than barefoot.
Wet Pendulum Test
Can be used for new surfaces as per Australia Standard 4586-2013 but also more importantly for existing surfaces in-situ testing. The Pendulum wet and dry testing is the most widely used assessment procedure in Australia. It simulates moving surface contact with rubber test feet called ‘sliders’. Because slips occur in the wet condition and many floor surfaces permit the ponding of water, the standardised test is carried out in wet conditions.
That is why Non Slip Floors Australia only use Ecoshield Performance Coatings. As industry-leading epoxy flooring suppliers, Ecoshield has conducted extensive slip testing on their full range of coatings, including epoxy flooring products, and have achieved R12 ratings that meet the Australian standards for all pedestrian surfaces.
If you want more information on Non-Slip Flooring Adelaide we can provide to help increasing the slip resistance of your floors, please contact us today.