Slippery Floors - the Dangers and Solutions

Nobody is immune to the risks of trips, falls and slips both inside and outside of the workplace. As per statistics, falls and slips are one of the most typical causes of workers’ compensation claims. For individuals who are over 55 years, falls are the major cause of occupational injury.

What are the dangers of slippery floors?

Mild to severe injuries is just one of the dangers of slippery floors. If slip and fall accidents happen in the workplace, the facility manager or the owner of the business has to take financial responsibility for the injury caused. Generally, such accidents lead to expensive lawsuits. Also, if it happens to any one of the employees, the company will also be liable to pay for the medical expenses incurred by the employee as a result of the injury. Therefore, it is crucial that you take precautions to prevent slip and fall accidents.

As a matter of fact, slips and falls must be prevented in both residential and commercial spaces. Falling on a slippery surface is never a good thing. It can cause severe injuries and might even result in the breaking of a bone or two. However, the stakes are higher when such accidents happen in the workplace. Even before the accident takes place, there is a chance that the productivity of the employees and staff will decrease when they learn that the floor surface is slippery. This is because they will always be conscious when they have to walk from one end of the office to the other. Also, clients or customers slipping or falling is never a good sign for a business.

What steps can you take to make your floors non-slippery?

To avoid the dangers aforementioned, it is important that proper steps are taken to make the floors non-slippery. Some of the steps are discussed below.

Floor maintenance plan: You cannot forget about your floors after they have been installed. Just like everything else, floors need a certain amount of care and maintenance. Also, it is impossible to prevent food and beverage spills, regardless of how careful you are or ask others to be. The chances of someone spilling their coffee or food is always on the higher side. Moreover, it is not always possible to instantly wipe away or mop the spills. The effect of such spills and foot traffic leads to floors becoming slippery with time. So, you need to have a property maintenance plan in place. You not only need to regularly clean the floors, but also routinely schedule professional floor deep cleaning. This will make sure that your floors are clean, germ-free and able to last long.

Slip resistance test: Just cleaning and maintaining your floors is not enough. You need to frequently check the slipperiness of your floors. In the UK, the portable pendulum test is the floor slip resistance test recognised by the HSE and the courts. As this test is a portable one, it can be conducted on your premises or you can send an area of your flooring to the laboratory of your chosen professional company. The test results will provide you with the PTV value of your floors. If the value is more than 36, it means that your floors are safe and they are not slippery. But, if the results come back as less than 36, it means that you have to consider non slip floor solutions.

Anti slip solutions: If your floors are slippery, you need to think of applying non slip floor treatments. One of the easiest and quickest solutions is anti slip coating. You can hire a professional to apply a non slip coating that suits your type of flooring.

So, make sure to take care of your floors if you do not wish to get in the middle of expensive lawsuits and compensation claims.

4Earth Solutions in the UK is the leading and largest provider of anti slip coating solutions. They specialise in its application and are also known for their broad range of environment-friendly cleaning products. This company works with a team of experts who have experience in carrying out slip resistance tests like, the portable pendulum test.