Roughness...

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Micro Surface Roughness

There are different ways to measure the roughness of a surface, but there is little evidence that it is a useful measure of slip resistance. What do you think of roughness as a tool to improve floor safety?

Roughness cannot detect contamination

Micro surface roughness measures will remain unaffected by contamination making it useless as a way of measuring the effectiveness of cleaning regimes or as a tool to explain why one area of a floor appears to be a slip hazard.

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SlipAlert more accurate and detects contamination

Watch the HSE video.

Roughness and Pendulum

Measures of roughness have poor correlation with the Pendulum. To read more about why it roughness is of little value in floor safety testing click here.

RZ and RA Roughness

Rz and RA are 2 forms of roughness meeasurement neither correlates well with the Pendulum and neither will tell you anything about contamination.

Roughness and poor cleaning...

Contamination makes no difference to the roughness measure of a surface, and so measuring roughness offers no value in testing your clesning regime.

Slip Accident Blackspot and roughness

From time to time an area of your floor may become a slip accident blackspot. When you first observe a slip or a small number of slips i the same area of floor, you may wish to test the area of floor to discover if that area of floor has become dangerous. It may have been caused by a spill that has not been cleaned properly and has made that area of floor slippery. In these situations roughness measures will not help you. You need SlipAlert.

Roughness, spills and contamination

Spills and contamination are one of the biggest causes of floors becoming slippery. Roughness cannot measure contamination on a floor.

Roughness and SAT

The HSE suggest using roughness measures with SAT, the Slips Asessment tool. Howver the logic for SAt was based on the PTV values of 20 = poor slip resitance and 40 = very good slip resistance. click here to find out more about using SAT with SlipAlert.

SlipAlert / Pendulum and SAT

The SAT programme uses these points of referenece and a notional correlation of 2:1 between Rz and PTV. It would make more sense to use pendulum-correlated vales (from a Pendulum or SlipAlert) and then half the value and enter into SAT.

Rough Luck...

A floor being rough does not mean that it is not slippery. Nor is it always true that a floor that is smooth must necessarily be slippery. Some of our clients have discovered this to their cost. Don't trust your luck by measuring roughness when you can get a much more reliable and accurate reading from your SlipAlert.

Kenny Surtronic Duo

Taylor Hobson Surtronic Duo is the biggest selleing Rz meter used for floor testing. Until March 2009 it was the only Rz micro surface roughness meter recomended by the UKSRG. the kenny is supplied by Spectrum Metrology and by Watco. You shoould know that Rz microroughness does not measure slip resistance, Rz cannot detect contamination, and Rz cannot measure changes to the slip risk or your floors.

SlipAlert is the easiest, most reliable way to check that your floors are safe.

SlipAlert better than roughness... (HSE)

“SlipAlert is able to distinguish between a given floor surface in clean condition and in a contaminated condition. This is a key advantage of SlipAlert compared with using surface micro roughness and makes it ideal for monitoring the effectiveness of cleaning” UK HSE