A slippery floor can be a potential safety hazard, and stone floors provide the hardest landing for unfortunate pedestrians. Any property owner will want to reduce the number of falls to occur on their stone floors, whether it be in their private residential home, in which their loved ones often traverse, or an office building. Adding a slip-resistant coating might be a useful preventative measure. Find out if your stone floor needs a layer by reading this guide:
What Is a Slip-Resistant Coating?
A slip-resistant coating gets applied directly to the surface of your floor and works well with a number of materials, including polished stone. It repels liquids and debris and prevents them from permeating into the stone’s pores, which would create a slippery ground otherwise. Although the additive looks similar to sand, because it is post-consumable crushed glass, it becomes transparent once applied, making it subtle on your floor. The crushed glass adds minor friction, which is effective because slipping occurs because of the lack of friction.
Slip resistance is especially important on floors that get wet often, such as stone tiling outdoors, but adding a coat helps prevent slipping even in dry conditions.
How To Measure a Floor’s Slip Resistance
The metric for measuring a floor’s slip resistance involves an equation to determine the coefficient of friction (COF), a value used to measure the friction between two objects. For floors, the two objects would be the pedestrian’s foot and the flooring material.
There are machines that can calculate the coefficient of friction of any floor, the most common of which is the tribometer. Obtain a tribometer and place it on your stone floor to get its coefficient of friction.
A floor needs a coefficient of friction .5 or higher to be considered slip resistant, but generally, people can comfortably walk on floors with a coefficient of friction of .4 or higher. If the tribometer measures your floor to have a COF of .4 or less, it’s probably time to get a slip-resistant coating to increase the COF, especially if the area experiences dense foot traffic or gets wet often.
Things to Consider Before Applying a Slip Resistant Coating
While applying the coating will tremendously help in reducing the risk of accidents, it can never completely prevent them. No floor is completely slip-free, regardless of what products you apply to them, so do not expect a slip-resistant coating to do the impossible.
Many owners recommend reapplying slip-resistant coatings every three to four years. This measure may vary depending on how often your stone floor gets cleaned, how often it rains on the floor, and how much foot traffic it receives. Either way, the coating will deteriorate over time and will need to be refreshed.
In Summary
A slip-resistant coating will help prevent accidents on your stone floor, especially if it gets walked on or rained on often. Use a tribometer or similar device to obtain the coefficient of friction (COF) of your stone floor. If it is below the standard for slip-resistant floors, it is highly recommended that you apply a coating.
