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Selecting slip resistant flooring that is sustainable for its guaranteed life can be a difficult area for everyone in the specification chain to understand and this is partly due to so-called ‘safety’ products entering the market which in reality do NOT provide adequate sustainable slip resistance in wet or dry applications.
With these products on the market offering such misleading claims, slip resistance is becoming an even more confusing area for those specifying floors that need to perform in potentially wet conditions. Polyflor always ensures that its safety flooring products are fully tested and fit for purpose, being constructed in such a way that particles exist through the performance layer for continual traction between foot and floor, of course, assuming the floor has been maintained correctly.
All of us in the flooring industry have a duty of care to provide the correct type of flooring where true sustainable slip resistance is needed, ensuing that building visitors or residents have the required underfoot protection, particularly as we have an ageing population. Selected products should be fit for purpose and correctly specified.
Here’s the key criteria that you should be looking out for when choosing a safety floor product that is fit for purpose for your project:
- Feature safety particles in the performance layer of the product – an emboss of gritted coating will only offer short term slip resistance and once trafficked will leave a smooth floor that is NOT slip resistant in wet conditions
- Meet the 50,000 cycles abrasion test requirements of EN 13845 proving that performance of slip resistant particles is sustainable
- Achieve a sustainable result of 36+ in the Pendulum Slip Test for slip resistance tested in wet conditions to AS 4586 Appendix A
- NOT be specified solely on R ratings as per AS 4586 Appendix D as these ratings do not demonstrate any longevity in terms of the floorcovering’s slip resistance and only apply to NEW surfaces
For more guidance on safety flooring, please contact our Technical Department on 1800 777 425 or technical@polyflor.com.au