Most property managers know that floor matting should be placed at building entrances, but did you know that there are other kinds of mats for other areas in your building? Different mats serve different purposes, and there are more areas in your building that need matting besides your front door!
Here’s a few spots in your commercial facility or industrial building that you may have overlooked when considering your matting needs:
- Guide visitors to your building with inlaid directional matting. Arrows, labels, and other markers can be inlaid directly into your entrance matting, allowing you to keep your floors cleaner and direct traffic in an effective, elegant way.
- Around computer terminals, copiers, and printers, use anti-static matting to help reduce the risk of static electricity shocks that are uncomfortable for your employees and potentially dangerous to sensitive electronic equipment.
- Transitional areas, such as those between an office and warehouse or food prep areas to front-of-house, greatly benefit from matting. Oftentimes the coefficient of friction between the flooring in different areas can vary quite a bit, and that difference can be unexpectedly slippery – especially when people are busy or distracted!
- A plush, absorbent mat should be placed under/around water fountains to absorb spills and keep puddles from spreading.
- Drainage mats made from nitrile rubber should be placed in food prep and kitchen areas to help reduce both the risk of slippage and worker fatigue. It’s important to use nitrile rubber in these areas for its greater resistance to degradation from grease exposure.
- In-office gym facilities should use specialty rubber athletic matting designed to minimize noise transfer from free weight areas to the floors below.
- Antifatigue mats should be used on factory floors and production lines in areas where it’s not practical to provide seating, but workers are stuck in a single spot for extended periods of time. Softer doesn’t equal better in circumstances like this – usually a more-textured antifatigue mat actually provides greater strain relief over the long term than something more cushiony.
