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Floor Safety Assurance: Implementing Effective Slip Testing Practices

Slip Testing Floors is an essential part of the process to create a safe work environment. Slip-and-fall accidents are common workplace injuries, costing both businesses and people a great deal of time, money and grief. They result in hefty legal payouts, medical expenses, lost wages, administrative costs, insurance premium increases, and damage to a company’s reputation.

A good way to avoid these costs is to ensure floors are Slip Testing Floors resistant prior to installation and handover. It is increasingly becoming the norm for Rhino Linings to ask our flooring contractors to carry out a wet pendulum test on any floor coating projects to give assurance that a finished floor will not contribute to future slip-and-fall incidents.

Pendulum Testing

The most reliable method of assessing a floor’s slip potential or slip resistance is the UL 410 pendulum test, as endorsed by the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The test uses a specialist regularly-calibrated machine that simulates the action of someone walking across the surface of the floor to determine its dynamic coefficient of friction (DCOF) which correlates with actual slip risk under conditions in which most slips occur. The test is usually carried out with water as a standard contaminant but can be done in the presence of a variety of wet and dry contaminants to better mimic normal use of the floor.

Unfortunately the Brungraber BOT-3000E does not have the capability to produce a true DCOF rating under wet conditions, and is only suitable for dry testing. The BOT-3000E can still provide an indicative grade of a floor’s slip potential under wet conditions by measuring the speed at which a small amount of water is displaced from a small area on the surface of the floor, but the results will not necessarily be comparable to a wet floor test conducted using the PTV system, or the wet BOT-3000E rated COF based on a larger area of a wet surface.

Pendulum tribometer tests can be undertaken onsite or in our lab, either on samples of the floor coating to be tested or on the completed flooring. The results are recorded as a British Pendulum Number and allocated a wet floor slip resistance classification of Z to V.

Having a UL 410 slip resistance certification on your website or marketing material can help potential clients and business partners make an informed decision about choosing you for their flooring project. It will also demonstrate that you have a professional attitude to health and safety and can be trusted to provide an effective, long-lasting, attractive and durable finish to your clients’ floor surfaces. This in turn will reduce their liability risks and protect their assets. UL 410 certified floor coatings are therefore a desirable choice for all types of commercial, industrial and domestic interior flooring applications. They can be easily identified by the UL 410 logo, which is available for manufacturers to display on their websites and marketing materials. This certification can help to attract and retain customers, as well as demonstrating a commitment to quality and environmental compliance.