Posted By Jerry Lucey There is a fairly simple device that measures the slip resistance of flooring and a standard of slip resistance that should be achieved. Have you contacted the manufacturers of your flooring or the polish you are using? The manufacturer of the flooring material may have results of tests on their materials and may be in a position to recommend an appropriate polish to use and an appropriate polishing regime.

Posted By Jack CIRIA have just published a new document called: Safer surfaces to walk on - reducing the risk of slipping (C652). See: http://www.ciria.org/acatalog/C652.html Both HSE and the HSL have been heavily involved. Although much of it is about design there is also a lot of information about maintaining surfaces. There is also information about measuring slip resistance. They have identified 3 methods: the pendulum; surface roughness measurement; and a laboratory method involving someone on an adjustable incline (increased until the person slips - takes account of both shoe surface and floor surface). I think this is a major contribution to controlling slips on floors, the downside is the price.

Posted By SDJC Dear All, Many thanks for your help and concern. Having read your advice and trawled through the HSE web-site for a while, I decided that the easiest thing to do next would be to conduct a quick survey. So my cleaning supervisor and myself trailed around the building armed with a few bottles of cleaning solutions and, well, our feet. The results where very interesting and very confusing. Our building has been subject to various refurbishment projects over the years, and we found no less than ten different kinds of lino. Some were decades old, some very recently fitted. We tested each different floor surface for slipperiness when dry, and then with the addition of small amounts of pure water, weak liquid detergent solution, strong liquid detergant solution and gel cleaner solution. All the liquids were mopped away, as they would be during the cleaning process, before we tested them simply by sliding a shoe over the area. There was almost no rhyme or reason in the results. None of the surfaces were slippery when dry for me - wearing shoes with a spongy rubber-type sole. My colleague, however, was wearing shoes with a leather sole and some of the surfaces were slippery when dry for her. The effect of damping with various solutions varied enormously. Some types of lino are worse with liquid detergent, some are worse with the gel, some are the same with both. The concentrated detergent solution is generally worse than the dilute solution but not always. Most confusing of all, the results also varied according to which type of shoe you were wearing. So some surfaces were better with liquid detergent for the leather sole, but better with gel cleaner for the rubber sole. The best floor surfaces, incidentally, were the decades-old ones composed of lino tiles. These were not really slippery under any conditions. The worst one was a lino laid down very recently in a major refurbishment. I am investigating the sealant and polishes we use, but these are not completely to blame. We found one plant room where the lino had never been sealed or polished and it was still slippery. So in at least some cases we have been landed with an inherently slippery product. Since we can't dry the floors completely 'bone dry' during the cleaning process, and we can't prevent people trailing in rain occasionally our options seem limited. We also evidently have a problem even with dry floors in some areas. I'm off to do more research, but if anyone has any other ideas I would be very grateful. Please accept my apologies for asking about this again - I myself have no brilliant ideas at present. Best wishes, Sarada Crowe