We no longer sell test equipment. We remain committed to providing our clients with the means to assess the slip risk of their floors in the most cost effective way possible. Our experience in personal injury slip and fall cases has shown us that tests conducted by the untrained or inexperienced produce unreliable results, with significant cost implications should test reports fail to stand up to expert scrutiny.

It should be noted that slip test equipment requires a skilled operator in order to produce valid results. Whilst operation of the pendulum is relatively straightforward, it is very easy for the inexperienced or untrained operator to miss small but vital details, having a significant impact on the values produced. Other 'user friendly' slip test methods don't produce the accurate results required. You can guarantee that these seemingly minor oversights would be pointed out by the savvy prosecution team, often negating well intentioned efforts to assess/monitor/provide safe surfaces and exposing responsible parties to the considerable costs of legal action.

It is rare that the purchase of test equipment is cheaper than employing our services as independent experts, even for large or repeated projects. Of course there are also are further costs beyond the initial purchase of equipment, such as calibration, maintenance, time/effort/pay of an operator during preparation/testing/reporting, travel time/expense, training time/fees and costs of consumables. There are rare cases where in-house testing is cheaper than employing our services, though we find clients are normally happy to cover the small excess to ensure an expert independent assessment with the benefit of our considerable experience in the field. You can find more about our slip risk assessment service here or request a quote here.

We would never recommend a method of testing to our clients which produced less than reliable results. We are of the firm opinion that inexperienced operators, using even the most user friendly test method, cannot be relied upon to produce and correctly interpret results to the extent that they would provide sound evidence in court. We would not recommend that responsible parties rely on an inexperienced operator's measurements, even if it is possible to save considerable sums. The considerable expense involved in replacing/treating an erroneously classified 'high slip risk' floor, or possible consequences of exposing pedestrians to an erroneously classified 'low slip risk' floor, would quickly offset any initial cost savings. In our experience of forensic investigation we have come across 'less than robust' test reports that have ultimately cost their responsible parties the wasted test equipment/assessment fee, court fees (including our own assessment and expert witness fee) and compensation to the injured party.

BS7976-2 pendulum testing remains the HSE and UKSRG's preferred slip testing method used extensively in litigation. Results generated by appropriately trained operators give a definitive measure of the slip resistance of a surface.

Alternatively, give us a call on

0845 163 0 163

Or e-mail us

info@grip-potential.com

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