TAKING THE RIGHT STE Andy Moul, Technical Manager at Construction Specialties, offers insight into
There’s more to entrance flooring than meets the eye. Of course, its ultimate function is to protect a building’s interior against the ingress of exterior dirt and moisture. However, different flooring solutions exist for different requirements; hence products vary in terms of material make-up, load- bearing and performance options.
An effective entrance matting system prevents up to 95% of dirt being tracked into a building from outside and can significantly reduce the potential for slip and trip incidents on smooth floor finishes beyond entrance areas. It also protects maintenance budgets as, once in the building, wet and dry soiling is costly to remove and can damage interior floor finishes, leading to their premature and expensive replacement.
MEETING REGULATIONS In terms of legislative compliance, BS 7953:1999 describes in detail the various types of entrance matting and provides specifiers with recommendations for their selection, planning, installation and maintenance. Furthermore, BS 8300-2:2018 (the code of practice which relates to the design of accessible buildings) states that a flooring system should be installed at the entrance to commercial and public premises in order to reduce ingress of soil and moisture ‘to the lowest practicable level’.
Regardless of the type of entrance flooring system used, it should scrape, wipe and retain dirt and moisture effectively, making contact with people’s feet entering the building and in the case of wheeled traffic, with the circumference of the wheels.
In order to comply, a minimum length of an entrance mat should be 2 metres in the direction of traffic, based on a typical
40 | ENTRANCE FLOORING
24” wheelchair wheel. However, to ensure adequate moisture removal in facilities with medium-to-high hourly pedestrian flow rates, at least 6 metres in traffic direction would be required. In some instances, it may not be practical, or even possible, to allow for this length of entrance matting to be incorporated in the entrance area. Other measures should then be taken into consideration, such as reducing the amount of dirt and moisture entering the building through provision of well- designed canopies, extending the entrance matting area to the outside of the building, keeping doors closed when possible or including revolving doors to encourage pedestrians to take more steps in a relatively small area.
The BS 8300 standard also recommends that reception areas are fitted with firm, slip-resistant floor surfaces, which are easy for wheelchair users to manoeuvre across. Adjacent floor surfaces should ideally have similar frictional characteristics to prevent stumbles and falls.
Recessed entrance matting installations are preferred, as they ensure that the system’s surface is level with that of the bordering floor finishes. If the selected entrance flooring system is surface-laid, it needs to either incorporate a ramped frame or have chamfered edges.
A THREE-ZONE APPROACH When selecting an entrance matting system, end-user requirements should be taken into consideration. The performance of the entrance matting, its durability, appearance, as well as ease of cleaning and maintenance are all important factors in the decision-making process. A wide variety of entrance matting systems available allows for the
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