The World of Hospitality Issue 29 2018 | страница 42

Have you ever said...
“
I don’t need to worry about slips
because I have an anti-slip floor?
Why are textured or profiled surfaces a
potentially hidden slip safety hazard?
Probably the single biggest misconception we see over the The only way to really be certain if you have a slip-resistant
floor is to test it. Don’t assume.
years in the slip safety industry is the misunderstanding
about textured or profiled surfaces. If the architectural
specification and building operator communities could
improve just one aspect of design and implementation
in order to make safer environments it must be to not
presume that a surface with some sort of texture on it is an
anti-slip surface.
Christian Harris MD of Slip Safety Services said “The fact
that a surface has a texture or profile does not necessarily
mean that it provides good slip-resistance”.
It is always important to remember that slip-resistance is
caused by the interaction between the heel and the floor.
Different surface profiles, therefore, will give you different
Pendulum used to test your floors Slip Risk
results (interestingly there is crossover with the safety
shoe industry where different tread patterns are more
Now, we’ve not even touched on maintenance here,
useful than other at providing friction). A rounded edge, for
which is another topic in itself. But if you start with a slip-
example, will give you a different level of friction to a spiky
resistance surface then you have a chance of maintaining
edge, and a different level of friction to a square edge.
safety. If you start with a poor surface that you mistakenly
think has good slip-resistance, it’s only a matter of time
Consider these textured surfaces. Each may look “anti-slip”
until you suffer from accidents.
to the uninitiated eye, but each will give very different slip-
resistance:
Take advantage now of the exclusive
reader offer from Slip Safey Safety
Services quote WOH1 to claim your FREE
Pendulum Slip test.