Wet floors
Is a coated floor slippery when it is wet?
A smooth top coat with water on it is slick, so texture gets added into the top coat, and how much belongs on your floor depends on the room.
The short version
- A smooth resin surface with water on it is slick. That is the finish, not the chemistry.
- Texture is added into the top coat, in grades from a light tooth to a coarse grip.
- More texture means more grip and a floor that is harder to sweep and mop.
- Where a floor is a workplace or open to the public, what it has to do is set by your local code, the property's own inspector and your insurer.
- Tell us what the room gets used for and we will come look at the floor before anything is picked.
Water on a smooth floor
A finished coating is a hard, closed surface, and that is most of why people want one. Nothing soaks in, dirt sweeps off, a spill wipes up. That same closed surface is what makes a film of water sit on top instead of going anywhere, and a shoe on a film of water is riding on the water rather than on the floor.
So the room is what decides how much this matters to you. A garage through a Midwest winter has meltwater on it constantly. A basement rec room almost never does. A pool deck is wet by definition and has bare feet on it, and a bare foot behaves differently on a wet surface than a rubber sole does.
Texture in the top coat
Grip gets built in rather than added afterward. A fine aggregate is broadcast into the top coat while it is still open, so the finished floor carries a tooth that a shoe or a foot can find through a film of water. It comes in grades, from something you barely notice barefoot up to a coarse grip meant for a wet work area.
The trade-off is cleaning, and it is worth knowing before you choose. The more texture a floor has, the more it holds onto dust and grit, and the harder it is to push a mop across. A heavily textured laundry room floor annoys somebody every week. Too little texture in a wet room is the other problem.
Workplaces and public floors
Once a floor is somewhere people work, or somewhere the public walks, what it has to do stops being a preference and it is not ours to state. Your local code, the property's own inspector and your insurer are the ones who set it, it varies by what the space gets used for, and the answer differs from town to town. Ask them, and ask early.
What we can do is come stand in the room. Tell us what happens in it: whether water gets on the floor and how it gets there, whether people are in work boots or bare feet, how it gets cleaned and how often. Then bring us whatever your inspector or your insurer has told you, and the finish gets picked around that.