When designing and operating your office space, industrial facility or place of business, your choice of flooring matters, and where typical carpets and tiles are unsuitable, specialist mats will often be required to meet specific requirements.
This aspect is a legal obligation; according to the Health and Safety Executive, a workplace floor must be suitable for the work being undertaken on it and must take into account not only the typical conditions of the workplace but also how they can change.
There are a lot of elements to this, including formal assessments for slip resistance, but a simple rule of thumb is to use matting systems designed to reduce the effects of slips and spills, whilst also preserving your flooring system and clearing away dirt and debris.
With all of this in mind, fingertip matting is a trusted solution in areas of heavy traffic, with both indoor and outdoor uses.
How do they work? Where should they be used? And how do they help to prevent injuries?
What Is Fingertip Matting?
Fingertip matting is a rubber mat with a distinctive pattern of rubber “fingertips” across its entire surface that pull and scrape at debris on the bottoms of shoes.
They are designed with channels to trap dirt and debris, they are inherently slip-resistant due to the properties of rubber and can be used both indoors and outdoors.
They can also be easily cleaned, either by running a vacuum cleaner over them or simply shaking out the dirt and debris.
Where Should Fingertip Matting Be Used?
Fingertip mats are used for a wide variety of purposes, but due to their suitability outdoors, they are often used as an outdoor entrance mat, particularly during autumn and winter.
They can help to stop dirt, mud, water and snow from being tracked into the office, which, alongside other types of entrance mat, can help to reduce your maintenance costs.
Alongside this, they are often used in high traffic areas to help protect vulnerable parts of the floor, cover loose wiring and in areas where there is a significant chance of condensation, spills or dust that could make the floor more slippery.
How Can Fingertip Matting Help To Prevent Accidents?
Fingertip matter, like other forms of rubber matting, has a non-slip base, making it easy to lay out wherever you need it with peace of mind that it will not move anywhere.
This surface alone helps to prevent accidents by ensuring people do not slip when walking on it.
If a flooring surface has caused issues in the past, a makeshift solution is to lay a path of fingertip mats to protect the floor and the people walking on it.
As well as this, it has a deep waterproof channel, meaning that it will not typically become slippery when wet, aided by a bevelled edge that reduces trip hazards.
Beyond this, by reducing dirt getting into the rest of the building, it can avoid affecting the slip resistance of an existing surface, particularly harder, smoother flooring types.