Tips for choosing the right entrance mat
Entrance matting is an often overlooked and under appreciated building component. But when you stop and think about it, an entrance mat has a lot to do with how your building looks. It’s the first thing people see when entering your building, and it’s one of the few defences you have to keep the interior of your building looking nice.
Area 1 Exterior Entrance
Zone 1 is all about scraping and removing the initial “surface” dirt, mud and moisture, and therefore requires a slightly tougher bristle than an internal carpet insert.
Area 3 Clean-off Zone
Zone 3 cleans and dries the soles of shoes or wheels, before they finally reach the internal floor coverings.
Area 2 Primary Entrance
Zone 2 requires a slightly softer bristle, removing any left-over dirt and moisture, collecting it at the entrance for cleaning later on.
How Much Entrance Matting Do I Need?
The entrance flooring system should scrape, wipe and retain, making contact with both feet of people entering the building, in the case of wheeled traffic, with the circumference of the wheels, this is estimated to be roughly 2.1m in length. However, many experts recognise that 6 metres (or 8 to 10 foot falls) is the optimum walk-off length of entrance flooring.
Understand your traffic
Entrance mats don't just have pedestrian traffic going across them, in supermarkets or retail stores they often have to cope with trolleys, cages laden with deliveries and in some instances forklift trucks going across them. So it's important to consider the rolling load capabilities of the entrance matting product you choose.
Consider the traffic direction
An understanding of traffic flow patterns also helps with designing an effective entrance matting system. When pedestrians enter the building, most follow the same path - for example leading them to a reception desk or a staircase - but some will spread in other directions. The entrance matting system should cover all the likely routes of people entering the building.
Consider the zonal approach
Breaking an entrance up into zones is a much more cost effective and efficient solution to entrance matting as each zone requires the entrance mat to do a slightly different job. You don’t always need the full length of your mat to be highly abrasive, only a section needs to be.
Choose the right insert
We offer a selection of different inserts to suit the varying functional and aesthetic requirements of your entrance.
Interior Carpet
Textile rot, scratching and drying
Exterior Carpet
Rot-proof exterior textile doubled
Vinyl
Non-slip with a design eliminating coarse dirt
Anti-slip
Perfect grip for areas with high risk of slipping
Serrated aluminum
Performance for exception entries with high traffic.
Brush
Versatility at the entrance and at the exit of the zone
Good dimensions
Please ensure you are accurate with your measurements, and advise us what measurements you have given us on any templates or drawings you supply us with. Acceptable dimensions can be: The overall finished size of the mat, the size of the mat including the frame, or the size of the mat minus the frame.
Size of the finished mat
Matwell size minus the frame
Inside dimensions of the frame
Outer frame
Exterior dimensions of the frame
Reduce cleaning costs
Cleaning costs of institutions surfaces can be mitigated by the use of the zoning principle. The pits used to store dirt and facilitate maintenance. Installed carpet will be rolled up or arranged in modules to facilitate maintenance operations.
Optimize the capture of dirt
Open mats are extremely effective for capturing dirt. They are ideal in environments subject to dust and weather. carpet rails are perforated to capture dirt in contact with the scraping surface and bring them quickly into the pit. So make sure you have a sufficiently large pit height or shorten your pit maintenance cycles if you opt for openwork mat.
The visual contrast as signage
Long, the use of strong contrasts to alert and inform users about their immediate environment. Applied to the carpet, this rule improves the wiping time and the cleanliness of your establishment. A visible and recognizable carpet more easily invite users to consider your carpet and it wipe their feet.
To comply with standards for disabled
The welcome mat, for compliance, must submit a hard surface so as not to impede the progress of chairs and strollers. So are aluminum rail carpets safe and ideal answer to this problem because their structure gives them rigidity and resistance to rolling loads. When free, adding a ramp is required to facilitate the movement of people with reduced mobility (PRM).