How to choose the best winter floor mats for your entryway
Whether you’re specifying entrance flooring for a new building or looking for an efficient solution to demonstrate your building’s commitment to providing a safe environment for employees, visitors and guests, winter floor mats can do a lot of the heavy lifting, year-round.
Now more than ever, businesses are going above and beyond to show they’re keeping employees and guests as safe as possible. First impressions count, and the cleanliness of the floor is a key indication of the level of commitment to safety and hygiene. This is even more paramount in winter months, when the wild weather means there’s a greater chance of debris being walked or wheeled inside. Enter: winter floor mats.
Why winter entrance mats?
Entrance matting is an essential inclusion for any public building, with most H&S regulations requiring that reasonable care has been taken to ensure visitor safety (including preventing slipping on moisture or debris that’s found its way indoors).
When you choose the exterior entrance matting and indoor winter mats, it will stop unwanted dirt and debris in its tracks, soak up moisture to reduce the risk of anyone slipping inside, and greatly reduce the amount of time and money spent on cleaning and replacing the rest of your interior flooring.
Most slips occur on wet or dirty floors and on floors in poor condition. Investing in a higher-performance, winter entrance mats reduces the risk of having to absorb higher ongoing cleaning and flooring replacement costs, or worse, paying damages and bearing the costs of delays, temporary labour, investigations and other hidden costs incurred if someone is injured on the premises. Falls and slips have been reported as the second most costly type of worker’s compensation claims, and in 2019, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported over 888,000 nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses causing employees to miss work.
Our entire Gateway entrance range has a close-mesh design that’s heel-proof and wheel-proof, is certified slip resistant, and is long-lasting and extremely easy to clean and maintain, so you can have confidence that you’re making a good investment. We have a huge range of exterior entrance mats and indoor winter mats to suit every need.
How to choose the best winter floor mat for your location, environment and needs
While all the mats in our Gateway range are designed to function at extreme winter temperatures down to -23°C, your winter floor mat and winter entrance mat needs will vary depending on your location and seasonal weather conditions.
Below, we’ve compiled the main concerns our customers have when looking for winter floor mats for their entrance to help you choose the right mat for your building.
Excess water?
Whether you live somewhere with heavy downpours or your building has poor drainage, you’ll need an all-seasons heavy duty entrance mat that can absorb large amounts of moisture as well as reducing the amount of dirt that’s walked or rolled into the building. Look for an entrance mat with carpet inserts combined with a scrape and clean system.
- If you need maximum moisture removal, Gateway Plus has heavy-duty absorbent carpet inserts specifically designed to remove and dry moisture. This means that cleaning intervals are reduced, floor finishes retain their quality, and entrances have a greater chance of remaining slip free.
- If your entrance doesn’t have a recessed mat well Gateway SB+ is a lightweight solution that provides excellent protection. Certified slip resistant, heel-proof and wheel-proof, this is the perfect solid-backed winter floor mat for busy public buildings and shopping malls.
Loads of snow or ice?
The best outdoor mats for snow and ice are all-seasons heavy duty entrance mat specially designed for external walkways with a large tread for extra grip.
Gateway XT can be installed both indoors or as an exterior entryway mat for snow and ice making it the ideal entrance mat for entrances that need to be able to withstand extreme weather conditions. The matting is specifically designed to quickly drain and dissipate water, ice and snow, and also has a deep-etched tread to trap dirt and debris that provides pedestrians with extra traction underfoot. This system is ideal as an exterior entrance mat for walkways like hardwood decking and bridges that tend to get slippery.
Lots of dirt and debris?
Whether you experience an increase in debris during winter or you need an entrance floor mat that can combat large amounts of dirt year-round, the solution is an entrance mat with nylon-brush inserts that will scrape shoes clean to combat snow, ice and dirt.
- If you’re looking to combat small or medium-sized debris (like dirt and small stones), Gateway Brush is your mat. The extra aggressive, heavy-duty brush inserts scrape shoes clean, while the open grid traps and collects debris.
- For larger debris, go for Gateway Brush Wide, which has an extra-wide slip-resistant open grid to trap dirt, stones and ice. Frontrunner Brush and Frontrunner Brush Wide can be used as standalone outdoor entrance mats or combined with another Frontrunner system specifically designed for inside like Gateway Plus.
Get on the front foot and get your entrance ready for winter
Gone are the days when the solution to dealing with wet weather was to put up a “Slippery When Wet” sign inside the door.
With heightened health and safety expectations, and the importance of maintaining visually hygienic premises, you’ll need winter floor mats that can handle whatever the environment hands to you.
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If you need a hand choosing the right entrance mat, we’re here to help.