Anti-Slip Glass Treatment

Anti-slip treatment applied to glass you already own. We treat the panel in our Sheffield workshop and the treatment is invisible, so the glass looks exactly as it did when it arrived. It is a chemical treatment rather than a surface film.

The price on this page is £150 per panel up to 2 square metres, ex-works. Allow two hours per panel, and you are welcome to wait while we do it. Larger panels are priced on enquiry.

Buying the glass from us as well? You do not need this page. Non-slip is an option on our walk-on floor glass, our framed floor units and our well covers, so tick it there and the panel arrives treated. This page is for glass that is already yours, or already installed.

Where the glass is already installed and cannot come out, we can treat it in place. That is quoted per job rather than priced here.

It does not change how the glass looks

This is the main reason people choose it. The usual ways of making glass less slippery are sandblasting and acid etching, and both work by taking the surface off. You end up with a frosted panel.

On a walk-on floor that is often the whole point lost. The reason the glass is there is to let light down and to be seen through, and a frosted panel does neither as well.

This treatment is chemical rather than abrasive, so it does not frost the glass. Clarity is unchanged, the panel still reads as glass, and from above you would not know it had been treated. On a feature floor, a lightwell or a rooflight that matters more than anything else on this page.

Slip resistance: the test figures

This is the figure people ask for and it is rarely published on a glass flooring page, so here it is in full, including the part that is less flattering.

The treated glass was pendulum tested in a laboratory to the method in the HSE 2012 publication Assessing the slip resistance of flooring, on a calibrated Munro pendulum skid tester using Slider 96. Testing was done in three directions across the panel, in both wet and dry conditions, eight swings per direction. The sample was conditioned for at least 24 hours beforehand at 21 to 25 degrees and 40 to 60 percent relative humidity, to ISO 291 Class 2. The figures below are the median of swings four to eight, which is how the method requires it to be reported.

The three figures in each row are the three test directions across the panel. The HSE bands are 0 to 24 high slip potential, 25 to 35 moderate, and 36 and above low slip potential. Pendulum slip testing sits outside the scope of UKAS accreditation, so no laboratory can offer it as a UKAS accredited test.

Dry, 68 is a strong result

Untreated glass is slippery, and that is the whole difficulty with a glass floor. 68 PTV is not scraping over the 36 threshold, it is comfortably inside the low slip potential band, and the lowest of the three directions was still 68. It is also achieved without altering the appearance of the panel, which is the part sandblasting and etching cannot offer.

Wet, it is not

We are not going to dress this up. Wet, the treated glass still falls in the high slip potential band. The treatment helps, but it does not lift wet glass into a band anyone should be designing around, and we would rather tell you that here than after the panel is in.

Treat this as a dry-area system. If the glass is external, or internal somewhere that regularly gets wet, a wet room, a pool surround, the foot of an outside door, the treatment on its own is not the answer and the design has to deal with the water. If you are unsure which side of that line your job sits on, ring us before you order rather than after.

What about an R rating?

Some specifications ask for R9, R10 or R11 rather than a PTV, so it is worth saying plainly: we do not quote an R rating for this treatment, and nobody can give you one honestly without having run that test.

The R rating comes from DIN 51130, which is a different test altogether. A person in standard boots walks up an inclined ramp with motor oil sprayed on the surface, and the rating is the angle at which they lose grip. R9 is 6 to 10 degrees, R13 is above 35. It has nothing in common with a pendulum swing on a clean or water-wet floor, and there is no conversion between the two scales. An R rating that has been worked backwards from a PTV figure has been invented.

In the UK the pendulum is the method the HSE and the UK Slip Resistance Group work to, which is why that is the figure we publish. DIN 51130 is a German workplace standard built around oily industrial floors, and it turns up in UK specifications more by habit than because it suits the building.

If your specification genuinely requires an R rating, this treatment is not the right product. A meaningful R rating needs a textured or profiled surface, which is the opposite of what an invisible treatment is for. Ring us and we will talk through what actually suits the job.

What matters as much as the figure

The consequence of a slip, and how the space is actually used. A panel in the middle of a dry hallway, a panel on a balcony that is guarded all the way round, and a panel at the head of a staircase are three different risk assessments even with identical glass. We are glad to talk it through, but the assessment is yours or your designer's to make.

Your own glass, treated ex-works

• £150 per panel, up to 2 square metres
• Two hours per panel. Wait while we do it, or drop it off and collect
• Top face treated as standard. Tell us if you need both faces
• Bring it in or send it in
• Larger than 2 square metres, or a run of panels, priced on enquiry

We look at the panel when it arrives and tell you if anything about it gives us pause before we start.

What the panel has to be

Polished glass only. If the face has already been etched or sandblasted it is a rough surface, and the treatment will not take on it. That is not something we can work around, so if you are not certain what you have, send us a photograph before you send the panel.

It has to arrive clean. No stickers, no label residue, no tape, no mastic or silicone smears, nothing left sitting on the face. Anything on the glass stops the treatment reaching it, and we cannot start until the panel is properly clean. If you would rather we cleaned it, say so when you book it in.

Glass we did not supply

Worth being straight about this one. Glass is fragile, and this is a panel we did not make and have not seen before it turns up. We take the same care with it as with our own and we note the condition it arrives in, but we cannot carry the risk of a panel breaking in handling on glass we have not supplied.

Treatment on site

Glass that is already installed can be treated in place. It is quoted per job rather than priced here, because it depends on the area, the access and where you are in the country. Call 0114 243 9009 or email sales@diomet.co.uk.

What to tell us

If the glass is coming to us:

• Panel size and glass thickness
• How many panels
• Whether it is internal or external
• Whether the area gets wet, and how it gets wet
• Who uses the space

If you need us to treat it on site, we need all of the above plus:

• The exact site address, not just a postcode
• Photographs of the area, including how we get to it
• The size and number of panels to be treated
• Whether the glass is internal or external

Without those four we cannot give you a price, only a guess, and a guess on site work is no use to either of us.

Buying the glass as well?

• 25.5mm walk-on laminated floor glass
• 31.5mm walk-on laminated floor glass
• 33mm walk-on laminated floor glass
• Framed walk-on floor units and well covers

Our walk-on glass floor buying guide covers non-slip alongside thickness, support and borders.