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Anti slip tape, easy to apply, and durable, but not invincible, some care must be taken before and during installation to ensure an efficient, and effective anti slip surface, especially exterior applications. Exterior applications require a bit more preparation than internal, in most cases, as dirt and moisture are likely to be factors to consider before application, moisture being the prominent problem outdoors compared to indoor. Ensuring the surface you are applying anti slip tape to is dry and free from dirt are the two main boxes to tick off.

An area must be clean and free from grit and grease. While a brush will take care of the grit, be it dust, mud or anything similar, grease is a different area altogether, and powerful cleaners must be used to remove it from the surface. While many are available that will do the job, find a cleaner which is alcohol based, such as our IPA cleaner, as this will create a clean, residue free surface to give the adhesive the best bond.

Simply sweeping a dry area can be enough for most anti slip tape applications, but if a surface was previously wet, even when dry, if a surface is porous, then moisture may return, causing the adhesive to fail. This can be prevented by using our surface primer, which when brushed on the surface and left to dry, will create a waterproof surface for the adhesive to bond to.

For areas which are a slip hazard and have heavy foot traffic, anti slip tape is very effective. However, the heavy foot traffic over time could cause the edges of the material to lift, causing areas that are potential slip hazards, so action must be taken to prevent this. Edge fix, applied along the edges of the tape to seal it, will prevent edge lift on Heskins anti slip tape, ensuring that heavy foot traffic areas, previously slippy, will stay slip-free for a long time.

If the anti slip tape has been down for a long time, it can wear and it’s performance be degraded. Replacing anti slip tape ( Instructions found on our blog post ‘How to Remove Anti Skid Tape’ ) is a much more cost effective, and more certain to be effective, than techniques such as epoxy flooring, which could be inconsistent, a record of poor anti slip epoxy application is on the hse.gov.uk website.

We hope this guide will give you the confidence to not only apply anti slip tape effectively for your situation, but to maintain to ensure optimal performance too.

You can visit our ancillaries page for more info on our IPA, edge fix and surface primer, and download data sheets.

Well…. kind of, but it is now available in a black and photoluminescent chevron finish, which means our glow in the dark egress tape has now increased in versatility.

Primarily only suitable for night-time use ( see our blog post on plain glow in the dark egress tape ) adding black chevrons to the material will also make it more effective in the day time by making it visible in a way to warn people of potentially hazardous areas.

Increasing the versatility of materials and products is not only efficient, but also makes them better value for money, and helps businesses meet their health and safety objectives more effectively.

Now, not only will glow in the dark hazard egress tape warn people of hazards by day, but by night, will also emit the energy it’s photons have absorbed during the day as a guiding light, which in times of power outs, will give people safe passage out of a building. Depending on the strength of the artificial or natural light energy it has absorbed, it will last a maximum of 2 hours, enough time for anyone to find their way out of a dark building.

We offer glow in the dark hazard egress tape in rolls ranging from widths of 12mm to 585mm, in a length of 10 metres.

Please contact us for more information.

I have eventually got around to writing a blog post about our most popular anti slip question: how to make safe ribbed decking! Ribbed wooden decking is a very popular surface, over the past 15 years its popularity has risen exponentially. It is a common misconception that the ribbed surface will prevent slippages; in fact, the opposite is true, having a ribbed surface results in less contact surface area creating a higher chance of losing grip. The ridges create a superb surface for debris to accumulate such as leafs, moss etc, this then soon adds to the slippage factor, in wet conditions algae can form on the wood allowing for lethal conditions.

Contrary to popular belief there is no magical solution to the ribbed decking slippage problem that will solve the slippage whilst retaining the natural appearance of the wood. Anti slip paint does not work – the surface is too irregular with the ridges too steep for the paint to effectively bond. Our safety-grip does not work well, whilst many have tried to adhere onto the upmost part using a thin (around 10mm) section there is such a small amount of product that it soon fails. Two part epoxy anti slip products are difficult to apply onto ribbed decking, one cannot reclaim the grit needed when brushing off due to the gaps between boards.

Heskins has two simple solutions for applying an effective non slip coating onto ribbed decking.

1). Use of Our Bolt Down Safety-Grip Plates

Our bolt down plates are extremely easy to apply, they require no surface preparation and are simply screwed into place. Our most popular plate is 115mmx635mm which has 6 countersunk screw holes, we produce them in any of our colour range, on request we will provide wood screws free of charge. Each plate is manufactured from high quality 1.6mm weather proof aluminum. We offer an L-shaped plate which is 120mmx45mmx635mm. Special sizes can be produced on request. For use in or around marine applications we can produce using stainless steel to prevent corrosion.

2). A Marine Ply Coating

This solution is a bit of a ‘cheat’, it works well and is inexpensive! As mentioned, ribbed decking has terrible non-slip properties, it can be lethal in wet conditions, its ribbed surface makes it difficult to adhere to, one simple solution, is to apply thin marine ply (it only needs to be thin as the decking will be load bearing, not the ply) then apply any of our non-slip materials. As we are the ultimate customer focused company we are happy to provide large sheets of anti slip tape in any of the grades or colours to help with your fitting!

For visual instruction on applying these two methods, you can check out our video below!