In commercial facilities across the country, the most common technique for preventing slip and fall accidents on stairs is the application of non-skid adhesive tapes or epoxy coatings embedded with aggregate. The appeal of this approach is that untrained personnel can quickly and easily apply the protection. However, for high-traffic stairways, tapes can peel off (creating a trip hazard) and coatings abrade away quickly, leading to frequent reapplication every few months to maintain safety standards.
Now, a new category of durable high-tech epoxy is available as solution to effectively ensure superior stair tread footing, safety, and visibility for years without re-application. This option dramatically reduces the need for maintenance and replacement even in heavily traveled areas and can be quickly and easily applied on stair treads by facility personnel.
The patented product from Form-A-Tread Company is a durable epoxy paste consisting of 100% solids that, once applied, can last for years in high traffic areas. It provides an extremely strong bond to a range of stair tread surfaces, with embedded aggregate to increase traction.
The epoxy paste can be used indoors or outdoors, as well as exposed to chemicals, weather, and temperature extremes. The bond is so strong that a chisel or angle grinder is required to remove the stair tread line, an advantage in high-traffic areas.
The high strength epoxy paste is designed to be easy to apply to stair treads by even untrained personnel. In a kit supplied by Form-A-Tread, there is a 400 ml cartridge of material that can produce 25 to 40 linear feet of one-inch-wide tread depending on the surface type. A special tool is then used to dispense and mix the material at the time of application in the correct ratio – eliminating the risk of human error.
The kit includes a patent-pending stencil system, so the one-inch-wide tread lines remain clean, neat, and parallel. In addition to straight line treads, instructions such as “Exit Here” or a corporate logo can be applied using the material and a stencil.
For added safety, the 100% epoxy tread line does not shrink and so provides a superior tactile sensation that creates greater awareness of footing when climbing or descending stairs.
The product is available in black and safety yellow to delineate the edge of each stair tread. To increase safety in low light, indoor facility settings, the company also offers a patented photoluminescent version of the stair tread safety product which glows-in-the-dark to provide greater visibility.
For more information, visit https://form-a-tread.com/
Written by Del Williams, a technical writer based in Torrance, Calif.