Leisure Centre Changing Room Slip Testing

Why changing rooms are unusually high risk

Several factors compound:

• Users are barefoot or in wet socks/poolside flip-flops — far less friction than shod movement
• The floor is persistently wet, not occasionally wet — the steady state is wet, not the exception
• Soap, shampoo and emollient residue accumulate during the day — cleaning cycles cannot keep up at peak
• Lighting is often subdued for thermal comfort, reducing visual hazard recognition
• Users are typically distracted with possessions, lockers and clothing

The two-method approach

Standard practice in the UK leisure industry is to test changing rooms using both:

• Pendulum with Slider 55 or 57 — in-situ, captures actual installed and worn-in floor performance
• BS EN 16165 Annex A barefoot ramp — product-level rating; usually verifies original specification

The pendulum is the action point for in-service decisions; the ramp data supports specification at refurbishment.

Common findings

• Tile installations originally specified to Class B that have polished down to Class A through chemical cleaning
• Bench and ledge surfaces that are more slippery than the floor — users sit, stand, and the bench surface is the actual fall point
• Shower-cubicle thresholds where the cubicle floor differs from the changing area floor
• Drain-grate covers that are below specification and are local fall points
• Locker-row corridors where carpet/mat material absorbs water and saturates

Hot-floor (heated) systems

Changing rooms with underfloor heating produce a continuous evaporation cycle that affects how moisture interacts with the floor surface. Tile selected for cold-floor changing rooms behaves differently in heated installations — sometimes better, sometimes worse depending on the surface chemistry. PTV data for heated floors should be collected with the heating in normal operation, not switched off.

Public sector vs private leisure

Local-authority leisure centres typically have older floor stock with more wear-related PTV deficit; private health-club changing rooms tend to have newer, higher-spec installations that meet specification when new but degrade through frequent chemical cleaning. The pendulum captures the actual current state regardless.