If you’ve chosen to have a wet room installed, then you may currently be contemplating many of the different options available to you.
None will be more important than the wet room flooring.
Wet rooms can offer a new lease of life to a bathroom and provide life-improving facilities to the property.
But due to the very nature of a wet room, selecting the correct type of flooring is vital.
A wet room will frequently get wet, possibly over a vast area of the room and on a daily basis, or even more often than that.
Traditional bathroom floor tiles will simply not perform to the standard you need and will most likely be wholly unsuitable.
Many tiles, particularly gloss floor tiles, will be slippery with no moisture on.
But in a wet room, they will become like ice in terms of how dangerous and slippery they are.
There are other considerations too, such as selecting a tile that has no sharp edges or textures that will impact the usability of the wet room but selecting a slip resistant floor is going to be your number one priority.
How To Make Sure Your Tiles Are Suitable?
Installing an entire wet room floor before considering how slip resistant the tiles are is not practical.
It will waste a significant amount of money, plus it can be time consuming and damaging to the floor when you need to take them up again.
Therefore, before installing the wet room floor tiles, you can perform a couple of tests to ensure they are going to be suitable.
Even if you cannot perform these tests yourself, it’s worth enquiring as to whether the tiles you select have undergone these tests already.
These tests are recommended by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and further information and guidance about them can be downloaded directly from their website.
There are two key tests you should carry out.
The pendulum CoF test is also known as the portable skid resistance tester and is standard practise when assessing how slippery a surface is.
Secondly, a UKSRG ramp test can be performed on tiles which you wish to use.
This test essentially sees a subject in soiled footwear walk up and down a tile that has been soaked with fresh water.
The incline of the rile is ramped up gradually until the tester slips.
Finally, you should consider how you will clean the tiles once they are installed.
Cleaning materials and solutions can often leave a tiled surface slippery, so consider what you will use, how you will use it and how long the surface will take to dry.
Is it going to create issues?
If you have your heart set on a tile that isn’t particularly suitable, or if your tiles have not been tested for suitability, then it may be that you can consider applying an anti-slip coating to the floor tiles.
Your professional installer will be able to advise on this.
For more information on selecting the correct type of slip resistant floor tiles for your wet room, get in touch with us today.