Slip and Fall Accidents

Is your company concerned about the possibility of slip and fall accidents, indoor air quality or appearance level of your building?

Commercial entryway matting is the first line of defense against the soil, water and dirt coming in to your building.

Placed inside or outside your entryway, matting protects your commercial and industrial establishment from all-weather environments. Using the correct matting solutions for your building ensures the safety of your staff and visitors, reduces maintenance cost, protects your flooring investment, improves air quality and makes people feel comfortable and welcome.

The Problem

Outdoor entryways can potentially be a stage for disaster. As people tread through entryways day in and day out, foreign matter, like dirt, pollen, and even mold spores, are tracked from the entrance to the interior floors. Besides being a potential mess, entryways accumulate particles and debris that pose a slip and fall hazard, especially if moisture is introduced into the equation.

Slips and falls cost companies $20,228 average per slip & fall workers’ compensation claim and $100,000 median per premises liability suit. Your entrance matting system is the first line of defense in protecting your customers and employees. Incorporating the correct matting into a  three-part entryway system can reduce liability and risk of injuries from slips and falls, minimize interior maintenance, improve indoor air quality, and much more.

WAXIE Sanitary Supply has been providing entrance matting and flooring solutions to our customers for more than 70 years. Our experience has shown that the best entrance matting performance is achieved with a customized, or three-part walk off system. An effective matting program will enhance the walk-off performance of mats from the exterior of a building, through the vestibule and into the lobby.

The Solution

An optimal entrance matting system designed to protect your customers and employees, enhance the appearance level of the floors and increase IAQ should be a combination of three types of floor mats: scraper mats, scraper/wiper mats, and/or wiper mats. This is referred to as the 3-mat system. The way you design your matting system will depend on your local weather conditions and what types of soils get tracked into your facility.

An effective entrance mat should be able to do four things:

1. It stops soil and water at the door. Effective mats provide a combination of scraping and wiping to stop the maximum amount of soil.
2. It stores soil and water for removal. An effective entry way mat will provide a place for soil and water to go for “storage”. The mat must provide a way for the soil and water to be contained on the mat so that they cannot spread to the surrounding floor and create a slip/fall hazard.
3. It minimizes tracking of soil and water. This is best accomplished by matting with a bi-level construction that provides an upper surface for walking and a lower area where soil and water are stored until removed by cleaning.
4. It provides a safe walking distance. The bottom of the mat should be slip-resistant to minimize movement on the floor when it is walked on.

EXTERIOR:
In outdoor, covered entrance areas, choose an aggressive scraping product that is as maintenance-free as possible. Scraper Mats are made of a durable material that has a textured top surface, which allows for aggressive scraping action. These are mats that should be placed just outside the entrance to your facility to remove most of the heavy soils from being tracked in.

VESTIBULE:
Scraper/Wiper Mats come next, and they are constructed a little differently. Scraper/wiper mats are the workhorse of the three mats as they are designed in a way that allows shoes to be ‘brushed’ from multiple directions causing even more dirt, as well as moisture, to be caught. The most effective of these mats are bi-level mats that let soil & water filter below the shoe level within the mat. They can be used either inside or outside the front door, although most are used inside. Again, depends on the needs of your facility.

LOBBY:
Wiper Mats are meant to trap the last bit of hair, dirt & lint that the other two types of mats may have missed, and should only be used inside. These are like taking a towel to brush the last bit of sand from your feet once you’ve left the beach. In indoor lobby areas, the nylon fibers offer optimal performance in applications requiring additional moisture absorption. An effective walk off performance requires a minimum of 20 to 30 linear feet of matting.