Choosing the Right Flooring for High-Traffic Public Spaces

Dave Ford, Altro’s Specifications Manager – North, explores the critical factors to consider when selecting flooring materials for public areas that experience heavy footfall, such as Government buildings, healthcare facilities, education spaces and leisure centres.

When it comes to specifying flooring for public areas with heavy footfall, there is a greater need than ever for durable, easy to clean and attractive surfaces – and thankfully plenty of smart solutions to meet those demands. Specifiers have a lot to balance, but probably top of that list has to be safety. Different environments demand different solutions to keep people safe, but deciding what flooring you need doesn’t need to be complicated. It’s all down to the contaminants present in your environment, as it’s contaminants that determine the level of slip risk.

For example, if you’ve ever been to a busy shopping centre when it’s been raining outside – wet shoes and dripping umbrellas can make the floor slippery. Likewise, there’s potential for wet floors in food and drink areas, restrooms and entrance areas. So, for many high traffic areas, especially where there’s a chance of water spillage, we recommend high quality safety flooring.

All our solutions for high slip-risk areas have PTV≥ 36 and are within the R10 slip resistance category. These products deliver sustained slip resistance, reducing the risk of slipping to one in a million for the lifetime of the flooring in areas where water is the contaminant. Also consider practical ways to reduce the risk in the first place, such as installing good quality barrier matting at entrances to reduce dirt and water brought in.

For areas with a low slip risk, where spillages rarely happen and there’s no direct access from outside bringing wet or muddy footprints, smooth flooring solutions could be ideal. For corridors, waiting areas, classroom and wards, smooth flooring also delivers ease of cleaning and durability and a wide range of aesthetic options.

For high traffic, heavy footfall areas, durability is a key consideration. Most safety flooring is impact-resistant, which makes it very durable, but look for manufacturer guarantees that prove confidence in the longevity of the flooring. Our safety flooring provides a robust, hardwearing surface that resists many common stains, odours and common chemicals for better hygiene.

Also remember that how flooring is maintained is essential to how it will perform, so cleaning should form part of the durability considerations.

To combat stains from food and drink, salt and dirt, it’s important that the cleaning regime is frequent and simple, and to use the right technique for the right flooring, communicated properly to the cleaning teams. You can find easy to use cleaning guides for all our products on the Altro website.

Safety and durability are key for flooring in high-traffic areas, but the good news is that there is a huge variety of products to choose from that allow you to deliver on these aspects and also design creatively when it comes to the look and feel of a space too. Long gone are the days of grey or blue or nothing. There is a vast array of bright or muted colours available, including those without the safety flooring ‘sparkle’, plus ranges that allow biophilic design to ‘bring the outside in’.

For example, Altro Illustra draws inspiration from the natural world with natural stone, textile and mineral designs that deliver visual texture and softness yet provides all the performance characteristics you’d expect from a safety floor. Designs such as these, along with nature-inspired wood safety floors, offer a harmonious blend of style and functionality with textures and softness to help create and enhance feeling of wellbeing within spaces.

High-traffic areas mean large numbers of people are using them, and that means specifiers need to consider the needs of all, including those with disabilities. For example, to consider the needs of the visually impaired, there must be adequate visual contrast between adjacent surfaces. The standards recommend a Light Reflectance Value (LRV) contrast of at least 30 points. This is far easier to achieve now there is such a wide range of design options to choose from, and many manufacturers provide detailed information on LRVs and also now on Chroma values. There have also been huge steps forward in designing for those with dementia or neurodiversity, which should be a consideration when specifying for all high-traffic areas – see the Altro website for more information on this.

Looking generally at design for wellbeing, something else that flooring can do is affect the acoustics of a space and help dampen the sound produced by footfall and other traffic.

Acoustics can significantly impact an environment and be problematic for specific sectors, like hospitals, care homes, dementia and mental health facilities. With flooring options that help reduce the decibel level of sound reflected off them, you can help create calming and comfortable environments wherever they are needed.

Acoustic flooring generally refers to flooring that helps provide sound insulation, thus dampening the effects of sound from within the room, be it airborne noise or impact noise. Acoustic flooring is different from soundproof underlay or flooring, which is designed to reduce sound coming through the floor from adjoining areas. Many modern flooring options incorporate sound reduction, so look for those details along with slip-resistance, aesthetics and durability. With flooring available offering different levels of sound reduction, you can tailor your project to its exact specifications.

The last factor we’re considering is sustainability – increasingly important for us all. The growth of adhesive-free flooring is great news for us all, as it comes with excellent sustainability credentials, with some, such as Altro’s, being 100% recyclable post-consumer and offering up to 50% saving on embodied carbon versus the equivalent flooring installed with wet adhesive.

Additionally, there are cost and time saving benefits. For example, Altro adhesive-free flooring has no need for a DPM, faster installation, less noise and downtime and no adhesive odours. Many ranges are now available for adhesive-free installation, including many suitable for high-traffic public areas.