A slippery, oily workshop floor

How the film works

Grip on a dry floor comes from direct contact between the sole of your boot and the surface. A film of oil, coolant or grease sits between the two and stops that contact happening. It does not take much. A layer you can barely see is enough to drop the available friction to a fraction of what it was.

Smooth power-floated concrete makes this much worse, because there is no surface texture for the film to break up around. A rougher floor at least gives the sole something to reach through to.

This is why the slip that puts somebody on the ground usually happens on a floor that looks fine. It is not a puddle. It is a shine.

Why a solid mat can make it worse

This is a fair criticism of matting and it is worth stating before we sell you any. If you put a smooth, solid mat on a floor that gets oil on it, the oil ends up on the mat. You have not removed the film, you have raised it 25mm and given it a defined edge to trip over.

The same argument applies to a solid mat on a wet floor, where liquid can pool on the surface rather than draining away.

The answer is not to avoid matting, it is to specify the right surface. A gritted top gives a mechanical key through a film. A drainage grid gives liquid somewhere to go. Those two variants exist precisely because of this problem.

What to do about the floor itself first

• Find where it is coming from. A machine leaking coolant, a drum being decanted in the wrong place, swarf carrying oil across the shop on boots. The floor is where you notice it, not usually where it starts.
• Absorbent granules and a proper spill routine. Cheap, immediate and often the whole answer.
• Sweep swarf rather than blowing it. Blowing puts oily mist in the air and moves the problem rather than removing it.
• Then consider the surface at the positions where somebody stands still while all of that goes on around them.

What a gritted deck does

A gritted surface presents a hard, irregular texture that reaches through a thin film to make contact with the sole. It is the same principle as anti-slip stair nosings and grit tape, applied to a surface you stand on for hours rather than one you cross.

On a 25mm deck you get that grip without giving up the compliance that makes standing tolerable in the first place, which is the reason to specify a gritted workstation kit rather than laying grit tape on the floor.

One honest note on slip resistance figures. We are not going to quote you a pendulum test value for this surface in a wet oily condition, because we have not had this exact surface tested in that exact condition and a number lifted from a different test is worse than no number. If you need documentation for a risk assessment, ring us and we will tell you what exists.

If there is standing water as well as oil, drainage matters more than grip alone. Standing water and washdown areas.

Questions people ask

Will oil damage the mat?

The failure people have seen elsewhere is open-cell foam tiles absorbing oil, swelling and never recovering. That criticism is accurate and it is aimed at a different construction. A closed rubber deck does not behave that way. If you have a specific coolant or oil you are worried about, ring us with the name of it rather than guessing.

Should I get gritted or drainage?

Gritted if the floor is oily but not really wet. Drainage if there is standing water or the area gets hosed. Both if it is genuinely wet and oily together, which is a specific kit rather than a compromise between two.

Is it harder to sweep?

Slightly. Brush it rather than blowing it, so swarf does not work into the joints. On the other hand you can lift the whole deck and sweep underneath, which you cannot do with a floor coating.