Are you a business owner? If so, it is your responsibility to look after and ensure the safety of your employees, staff and whoever enters your premises. Since slips and falls are one of the major accidents at workplaces, you are mandated to make sure that the floors are safe from such accidents at all times. Preventing floor slips will not just save your employees from falling, but it will save your business from having to take care of slip injury claims.

The best way to determine if your floors are slippery is by conducting a pendulum test. Even though there are other slip resistance tests, the pendulum test is recognised by the UK court of law. Also, the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) recommends this test. Keep reading to find out more about this test.

What is the pendulum resistance test?

In the UK, the pendulum friction test is the gold standard when it comes to slip testing. It is used by the HSE in enforcement, as well as, prosecution. So, if you are taken to court, the pendulum test data will be presented against you.

The pendulum machine is designed specifically to imitate or copy the interaction between an individual’s heel (whether wearing a shoe or barefoot) and a floor. The test measures how much friction is produced as a result of this interaction. By standardising the individual’s heel part of the equation, the pendulum resistance test data quantifies solely the slip resistance that is provided by the surface of the floor.

This test is portable and can be used in laboratory settings, as well as, on real-life floors. So, you can either choose to send a portion of your floor to the professional company who will be conducting the pendulum friction test or ask them to come to your office.

The pendulum test can be carried out on both wet and dry floor surfaces.

How does the test work?

In the pendulum machine, a spring-loaded foot is attached with a rubber, which mimics a person’s barefoot and shod foot. Initially, the foot is held at a horizontal angle. Then, the foot is released down and this is where it strikes the surface of the floor between a predetermined distance. The foot swings through.

As the foot swings, it results in pushing a pointer to a gauge. The distance that the pendulum travels after striking the floor is what determines the slipperiness of a floor surface.

What is the pendulum test output?

There are numbers on the gauge that the swinging foot points towards. These numbers represent the PTV or the Pendulum Test Value. This is 100x the CoF (coefficient of friction).

Wet and dry readings are taken and the results are interpreted in the same way, even though there might be differences in PTV between wet and dry conditions.

As per the HSE, there are three categories of risk for the Pendulum Test Value -

0 to 24 PTV means high slip potential

25 to 35 PTV means moderate slip potential

36+ PTV means low slip potential

What is the value of the test?

The importance of conducting this test is to measure the slip potential of the floor and manage it so that future accidents can be avoided. By carrying out pendulum slip testing, you can find out about the slip safety risks at your workplace, protect yourself from insurance claim costs and make informed decisions on how to decrease the risks.

For instance, if the PTV value comes to less than 36, you can immediately consider anti-slip floor treatments so that accidents can be avoided and you do not have to deal with expensive lawsuits and insurance claims.

So, if you have not conducted a pendulum slip resistance test, you must immediately contact a professional and find out if your floors are safe to walk on.