Your guide to choosing the best changing room and swimming pool floor mats
Want to make your swimming amenities safer this summer?
You’re probably familiar with slip-resistant pool matting for surfaces – but did you know that not every slip-resistant mat is suitable to use for barefoot flooring?
Here’s how to choose swimming pool matting that will help stop slips – and so much more.
Positioning slip-resistant pool matting around pool perimeters, inside locker rooms, and along walkways is important when it comes to ensuring employee and visitor safety in these high-slip environments.
But there’s a lot more to effective pool safety mats and locker room flooring than just slip resistance; you must make sure the mat is comfortable for bare feet, can cope with sweltering temperatures and UV rays, can be cleaned easily, and provides the highest level of hygiene.
Here’s a simple checklist to follow when you need new barefoot pool matting, plus two of our favorite barefoot flooring options:
Excellent drainage
For flooring around pools, choose self-draining pool deck mats such as Heronrib. Thanks to its channeled underbars, Heronrib automatically self-drains – even when confronted with a lot of water. This is essential because you want to avoid water pooling on the ground, as it creates both a slip hazard and a hygiene risk, particularly in humid environments.
UV-resistant
The sun’s UV rays can erode many rubber and plastic mats, damaging their integrity. Make sure any outdoor barefoot matting or pool safety mats are UV-resistant – particularly if the matting will be outside, and in extreme summer temperatures.
Chemical resistant
It’s also important to make sure any matting for a swimming pool environment is chemical resistant, in particular to chlorine water and the cleaning products used on the floor surfaces of your facilities.
Comfortable for bare feet
Look for a softer mat with an etched or embossed surface that will provide both safety and comfort underfoot.
When the Magnolia Independent School District in Texas required a safe barefoot walkway for its indoor swimming pool (used by more than 300 students each day, as well as members of the local community), they ordered several hundred meters of Heronrib to line the pool perimeter. Read the case study.
A thermal barrier that doesn’t absorb the heat
Tiles, wood decking and paved paths can all reach scorching temperatures under the sun. This is a safety risk in itself, and can increase the likelihood of people – especially kids – running around the perimeter of the pool. Choose swimming pool mats that don’t absorb the sun’s heat and create a raised surface off the hot ground to help keep people safe.
The highest level of hygiene
Providing continuous barefoot flooring hygiene is crucial in wet and humid environments. All Plastex mats contain antimicrobial and antifungal additives to ensure excellent hygiene, no matter how much foot traffic your pool, jacuzzi, changing rooms and shower areas get.
A breeze to install
Picking a walkway solution that's easy to install, and simple to move, as well as store away, helps save valuable time for facility managers and cleaning teams. Our roll-and-go barefoot matting is not only quick to install, its one piece construction means you get total flexibility on moving it, or storing it away when a walkway isn't needed.
Easy to clean
Plastex barefoot flooring mats are lightweight and easy to move for cleaning (and storage in the low-season). Maintenance teams need to be able to clean all pool matting and locker room floor mats and the original floor surface throughout and at the end of the season to maintain hygiene and appearance, and one-piece construction mats are much simpler to lift up for cleaning than interlocking tiles, which can come apart when moved.
Case study
Heronrib barefoot matting ensures safe walkways
When the Blue Lagoon in Iceland needed a barefoot flooring solution that would stop slips, protect from bacterial contamination and provide comfort underfoot for their 400,000+ visitors a year – including on uneven and slippery surfaces – they came to Plastex.
Here are two great changing room and pool matting options to consider
Case study
Heronrib provides slip-resistant poolside walkway
When the Magnolia Independent School District in Texas required a safe barefoot walkway for its indoor swimming pool (used by more than 300 students each day, as well as members of the local community), they ordered several hundred meters of Heronrib to line the pool perimeter.
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When thinking about how best to keep your visitors and staff safe from slips, our team is here to help.