The most effective entrance matting programs actually begin outside of your commercial building! Deploying aggressive scraper exterior entrance mats can be used to scrape off large debris such as salt, snow and ice in the winter and keep those contaminants from even entering your building at all. Exterior scraper matting can also be able to handle the dense oils and debris from parking lot material.
Bridging the gap between your exterior matting and your interior spaces is equally important. Entrance matting should be placed in your entry vestibules that is at least 8 to 10 feet long and 6 to 8 feet wide to capture the foot traffic that typically spreads out once inside your doors. This amount of matting is necessary to scrape and capture debris and absorb moisture from shoes and boots.
Fifty years ago, the commonly-accepted building standard was a total of 15 linear feet of walk-off matting. That was sufficient because about the vast majority of shoes in the business world were flat leather soles worn by men. But today’s footwear is substantially different – even business-casual shoes have integrated soles with tread designed to give you more traction outside so there are places for dirt, ice and snow to cling.
Once inside, inbound traffic should be directed over a commercial-duty wiper-scraper mat, which finishes the job of removing the moisture and small particles from the shoes. These mats also act as a transition to tile and carpet, and are the last line of defense and must both be sturdy enough to handle shoe deposits and attractive enough to greet visitors.
