Floortesters Brochure
- 1. Committed to improving floor safety
- 2. North East Business & Innovation Centre Wearfield Enterprise Park East Sunderland SR5 2TA Tel: 0191 516 6709 Over a third of all major injuries reported each year are caused as a result of a slip or trip. The Government Health and Safety Executive have released statistics that on average suggest that there is one serious slip accident every 3 minutes. The simplest way to solve slip accidents is to prevent the problem from occurring and with millions of pounds lost every year related to floor resistance failure, more and more slip accidents are being dealt with through solicitors and the courts. It is also now the responsibility of companies to have their surfaces tested at least once a year to keep their floor risk assessments up to date. The HSE have stipulated that floor surfaces must be safe and maintained in a reasonable manner. Best advice on what is classified as safe is stipulated by the HSL and the UK Slip Resistance Group guidelines Version 4, 2011. There is a duty of care upon risk management, procurement, health and safety, facilities management, manufacturers, distributors, and installers who specify flooring products to ensure that flooring surfaces are fit for purpose and do not pose a safety hazard. Furthermore, all companies have a duty of care to their staff, patrons and any contractors visiting their place of business to ensure that an adequate risk assessment on their flooring surfaces is in place. The first step of any risk assessment is measurability as without being able to measure we have no starting point. This is where Pendulum Slip Testing is applicable. By testing you can acquire the starting data that allows you to address any potential issues that may arise or at the very least gives you the assurance that your floor surfaces are safe.
- 3. ABOUT FLOORTESTERS.COM Floortesters.com have a dedicated team of industry experts that can advise on any type of flooring ranging from resins such as MMA, Polyurethane, Epoxy, preformed, poured and polished concrete as well as all types of mineral, tiled and composite floors. Our flooring specialists have a wealth of experience derived from a variety of backgrounds in the design, fabrication, installation and restoration of all of these surfaces and would be happy to assist you with your requirements. Our qualified Chartered Structural Engineers have experience of a full range of concrete floor applications including planning, design, construction, restoration and remedial techniques. Ground bearing and suspended floor slabs can be appraised for strength, durability, refurbishment or change of use to either British Standards or Eurocodes. Prevention and remediation of slab cracking caused by thermal, shrinkage and load effects is our speciality. OUR NATIONAL NETWORK OF PENDULUM TESTERS At Floortesters.com we provide independent floor testing and inspection services to allow you to meet your legal duty of care to ensure floor safety as defined by the Health and Safety Executive. Our unique service allows your company to get an unbiased detailed report on what areas of your facility may present a slip or skid hazard. Our experience and proficiency in the flooring industry provides us with the ability to offer impartial advice on any technical queries for industrial, commercial and retail flooring. We offer a full on-site consultancy service regarding slip and skid issues. Testing of floors and surfaces in-situ and can identify a significant number of factors that can influence the slip or skid performance of flooring materials, for example, cleaning regimes, maintenance, integrity of substrate, and wearing of the floor surface.
- 4. With our own in-house practical experience and product support from our dedicated team, we are able to respond confidently and efficiently to all queries. At Floortesters.com we want to raise awareness of how these incidents can happen and how they can be easily avoided by taking common sense actions and precautions at little or no cost. Keith Wilson We have expertise in a range of flooring materials, including: Resin Finishes Cement / Concrete Natural Stone Granite Slate Terrazzo Marble Wood & Laminate Vinyl Porcelain & Ceramic Tiles At Floortesters.com we offer Slip/Skid resistance testing to assess the floors slip potential in workplace and public areas using the pendulum testing method. The Pendulum Test is the HSEs only approved method of testing how slippery a floor is in everyday circumstances. It gives an accurate reading of whether a floor is liable to cause a slip accident; particularly in wet or contaminated conditions. Pendulum results should be interpreted using the information reproduced in the table below: PTV High slip potential 0-24 Moderate slip potential 25-35 Low slip potential 36 + Slip potential classification based on pendulum test values (PTV).
- 5. We can carry out Slip and Skid testing on floors for a variety of location and surfaces, such as: Warehouses Canteens Lift Lobbies Factories Education Facilities Shopping Centres Retail Outlets Car Dealerships Reception Areas Swimming Pools Concourses i.e. Airport and Train stations Hotels Corporate Offices Hospitals Sport Grounds and Stadiums 1. Huddersfield Creative Arts Building Floors can be tested in-situ or flooring materials can be tested in our laboratory. Please contact us to make arrangements for your floor sample to be tested. FLOORTESTERS CONSULTANCY SERVICES If you are looking for assistance with product design, guidance with material selection, durability and lifetime prediction or an accurate understanding of product failure Floortesters.com is the company to choose. Our Consultants will work alongside you offering guidance and support as an integral part of the product design and development process. We will make specific suggestions as to what areas we feel should be tested but will test any areas that you feel may be a slip risk. OUR APPROACH A safety audit will be carried out on your premises to test and evaluate the existing or new floors in your facility. A detailed interview with the facility manager to consult all areas that the company may want addressed. To inspect and determine which areas may be potential slip and skid hazards and categorise them appropriately. Record and diagram the facility and zone each area according to risk factor. Compile detailed reports stored on our data server and sent to designated company personnel for review. After the results of the pendulum slip testing have been recorded, we can if required recommend various potential solutions to any issues that may arise.
- 6. OUR FULL RANGE OF SERVICES Concrete Slab Moisture Testing Certified Flooring Inspection Repair Options Certified Testing Analysis & Reporting Nationwide Service Insurance companies who wish to identify the liability risk with their clients companies and its facilities have an ally in Floortesters.com. By requiring a client to test and audit their facilities floors, it gives the Insurer the true picture of the risk factors to the insured facilities. Depending on audit results, recorded by our independent inspectors, an insurer can base the premium on the risk factor the clients floors present to its employees and the public. If the results of our Pendulum Slip Tests find that the floors have a value of less than 36 then the Insurer has the option to make whatever adjustments necessary on your clients policy to mitigate the liability. When assessing the risk of a particular building there is now a new tool to help identify any slip or skid hazards that the facilities floors may present, and by testing floors it helps to give risk analysts a true picture as to the actual condition of the facilities floors. At Floortesters.com we offer a range of floor testing methods which also includes: Surface Micro Roughness Assessment Relative Humidity Testing Pull Off Testing Drop Testing Crack Surveys and Crack Monitoring We charge 贈480.00 + VAT for up to 8 tests and a full report on the condition of your floors. This price is static throughout the UK. The test is carried out in three directions with 8 swings in each direction, dry and then wet of which the first three are to bed in the sider of the pendulum and the last 5 are the readings that the average is taken from. The type of pendulum slip tester used by Floortesters.com
- 7. will have the calibration verified before the test is carried out which guarantees that the readings are always accurate. All of the readings are recorded and put into a professional report on the condition of the floors concerned. If after the tests are carried out it is found that there is as slip or skid issue, due to the years of experience we have in the structural engineering and testing industry we can if required make recommendations on relevant solutions that are available to resolve the slip problem. We can conduct floor testing on a regular contract basis and visit you as required based on the needs of your business. We typically offer 3, 6 and 12 month floor testing contracts, but we can tailor a package to suit your requirements. We recommend a maximum of 12 months between floor pendulum tests. A longer period could cause risk of serious floor slip injuries, and would invalidate the annual risk assessment. If this costing is acceptable to your company please contact sales@floortesters.com and we can arrange the time and date for your test. For more information on these testing methods please contact us directly to discuss your requirements. Floortesters, helping you measure and manage the risk of your floors liability.