Bad weather, particularly during periods of heavy rain, can lead to mud in and around building entrances. Heavy mud brought inside buildings on footwear can become an issue in terms of health and safety, as it can create a slip hazard for your visitors and staff alike.
Not only is heavy mud a health and safety issue, without an effective entrance matting system in place you are also likely to increase the cost of cleaning your premises. In fact, it is estimated that the cost to remove half a kilogram of dirt, once it has got inside a building, is a massive £350 (Source: International Sanitary Supply Association).
How can you prevent heavy mud becoming a slip hazard, as well as putting a large dent in your cleaning budget? We have put together a brief guide below, to help you understand the correct mats to deal with heavy mud, preventing slip and fall accidents, by stopping the mud from being tracked through your building on the footwear of your visitors.
Mats for heavy mud – stop mud at the door
- Outside of your entrance
To prevent heavy mud from entering your building in the first place, use an outdoor entrance mat. The mat placed outside needs to have good scraping properties, in order for it to scrape heavy mud from footwear as your visitors pass over it.
It should also ideally have drainage holes, so that the mud scraped from shoes can fall through and away from the standing surface. This will prevent the mud from sitting on top of the mat and being tracked off by further passes over the mat.
An important thing to remember when placing a mat outside, is to ensure that it is weather resistant. Matting placed outside, exposed to all of the elements, needs to be able to cope under all kinds of weather conditions. You should look to purchase matting that is made of rubber, ideally Nitrile rubber which is an extremely tough material, built to cope in all types of weather conditions.
For more information on weather resistant matting, read our blog here.
- Inside of your entrance
When you are trying to cope with heavy mud, using an outdoor entrance mat alone will not be sufficient. You will need some indoor entrance matting in place to finish off the job.
The best type of indoor entrance matting to use for heavy mud, will be a bi-level mat. Bi-level matting has an upper level that will scrape and wipe mud from footwear, where it will fall to the lower level of the mat until it is cleaned away. This prevents the mud being tracked off the mat and around your building by further passes over the mat.
Read more about Bi-Level entrance matting here
Keep them clean!
If your mats are trying to stop heavy mud from entering your premises, they are likely going to become very dirty very quickly. It is therefore important to clean them regularly, so that they can continue to do the job in hand effectively.
Your outdoor entrance mat can simply be cleaned down with a hose or pressure washer to blast away the mud.
Your indoor entrance mat can be cleaned in a number of ways from simply shaking it off, vacuuming it, or carpet shampooing it.
See our article here for more details and video demonstrations on how to clean your mats.
What to do next
We hope we have given you a good insight into the best mats for heavy mud and how they can be used mats to prevent heavy mud from entering your building. If you would like to view our range of Entrance Matting, you can find them here.
Alternatively, if you would like some further advice on exactly which mats to use, please do not hesitate to give us a call on 0121 313 6748 or use our Live Chat facility during normal office hours.
