With the cold, snowy, wet weather upon us, it is time to consider how this weather can affect our floor care efforts. What changes during the winter? It depends on your local climate. Weather in much of the Northern Hemisphere is wet and cold. Even in traditionally warm areas, such as the Southeast United States, precipitation and falling temperatures can produce frigid results.

What does water, frozen or otherwise, do to floors? Water and dirt are tracked into buildings all year long, but with winter comes new challenges such as more water, snow, "anti-slip" materials, and ice melters. The entries of buildings get a big dose of each type of material, and these soils affect both hard surface floors and carpets.

In order to protect your floors during the winter months a walk-off matting system is the best preventative measure you can take.

The Matting System

Matting must be installed as a system. Both exterior and interior matting are necessary. The exterior matting has a coarse, open fiber system, which removes most of the snow, salt, dirt and sand before it even gets into the building. The interior matting is constructed like carpeting, and removes the remainder of the water and soil from shoe soles.

Reasons for installing and maintaining an effective matting system include:

• Mats help keep floors clean by collecting up to 75% of the soil that is normally tracked into businesses.
• Mats save money by reducing floor maintenance costs.
• Mats catch spills in canteens, kitchens, and break areas.
• Mats improve safety by reducing slip and fall accidents.