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Getting older? Hang on to yer hips for as long as you can then.


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By chance the other day, I hear some authoritative medical advice about getting old(er) .

Keep your hips in one piece.

Apparently at my age a broken hip is one of the markers to look out for. Why?

It becomes increasingly difficult to recover from a slip and subsequent fall. 

 

So a trip to Topps Tiles has added significance: the manager at Morecambe points out the Pendulum Test Value (PTV) classification on his tiles - the range of slippiness extends from somewhere between Wet room approved  and deadly.   But ouch, the prices!

 

Off to Wickes round the corner. My God what sloppy couldn't-give-a-stuff-staff. 

Tiles half the price. 

 

'Scuse me Mr Wickes, are these wetroom tiles PTV rated?

Wha' ?

Tested for slippiness?

Yep, 's on the packet

Where, show me please.

Drags himself reluctantly out of a nice comfy office chair ... 

 

Erm, erm, hold on,  I ring 'ed office

 

Yeah mate, funny you should ask - our 'ed office bloke said to go to Topps Tiles if you want PTV tiles.  'Ee used to be a manager at Topps Tiles see.

 

Ya live and learn duntcha?

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, AnonymousBosch said:

By chance the other day, I hear some authoritative medical advice about getting old(er) .

Keep your hips in one piece.

Apparently at my age a broken hip is one of the markers to look out for. Why?

It becomes increasingly difficult to recover from a slip and subsequent fall. 

 

So a trip to Topps Tiles has added significance: the manager at Morecambe points out the Pendulum Test Value (PTV) classification on his tiles - the range of slippiness extends from somewhere between Wet room approved  and deadly.   But ouch, the prices!

 

Off to Wickes round the corner. My God what sloppy couldn't-give-a-stuff-staff. 

Tiles half the price. 

 

'Scuse me Mr Wickes, are these wetroom tiles PTV rated?

Wha' ?

Tested for slippiness?

Yep, 's on the packet

Where, show me please.

Drags himself reluctantly out of a nice comfy office chair ... 

 

Erm, erm, hold on,  I ring 'ed office

 

Yeah mate, funny you should ask - our 'ed office bloke said to go to Topps Tiles if you want PTV tiles.  'Ee used to be a manager at Topps Tiles see.

 

Ya live and learn duntcha?

 

 

 

 

Verrrry good point Ian

I laid porcelain slate tiles at our previous home Looked fantastic 

But slippy even when dry All on the ground floor so ok ish 

Top of Debs wish list where Porcelain slats But non slip this time 165 mtrs The ones she found where £53 per sq mtr 

Plus matting plus adhesive 

I managed to get them for £29 including vat 

Still expensive  it even our daughters dog finds them non slip  

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Agree on hips.

 

(Though hips reminds me of ships which reminds me of something my niece said when she was little.

 

"We are having an arbour for the garden"

"With ships?"

 

This being Nottinghamshire, where 'aitches 'ardly 'ever 'appen.)

 

Top Tip 1: Get a sample big enough to stand on and test them with water and with soap. No disrespect to the appliance of science, but a stand-on-the-real-thing test may better for your own shower, unless you have a precalibration of your comfort vs the standard pendulum. 

 

Top Tip 2: The more textured, the tougher they will be to clean. Test with your chosen cleaning method - you will be wearing out your hip cleaning them. I have matt finish tiles called Karachi Ivory from Realonda Ceramica via Tile Town, which are quite non-slip. There is also a thing called a "matching mosaic"; presumably that is something for designer types.

 

Best cleaning method is a steam floor cleaner (so I am told by my cleaner), though a traditional cleaning-lady mop (dab not scrub) or floor sponge seems OK.

 

My supplier Tiletown currently have a 20% online discount. Currently about £26.40 per sqm all in, and they send up to 3 free samples in the post. And no delivery charges for >£150 order (in England and Wales - cough). Or £26.40 on the spot with the printed voucher. Normal price £35. Good price - not much more than their normal trade.


Ferdinand

 

Edited by Ferdinand
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On the back of Ian's wise words I've just ordered:

 

Stone Grip Non-Slip Floor Treatment 900ml from Slip Doctors. £34.99 so not cheap but rather that than my £17/m2 ceramics catching me out! 

 

Also timely as my 89 year old FiL has only just broken his hip and had a partial replacement 2 weeks ago. Tbh healing well, medical team astounded and back home and walking albeit with a stick / sticks. His pre fall relative fitness helped massively I'm sure, him being super active for his age.

 

(He is I might add on methotrexate which I believe makes bones brittle? He does take calcium supplements to compensate).

 

 

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I have always been amazed that i appeared to be the only person in the world that worried about the slippiness of surfaces.

We laid our first patio - cheapest slabs we could find in a lovely (?) 80’s style checkerboard of pink and white slabs.  When wet it was like ice!  We always had the paddling pool on the patio and the kids slipped over regularly..

We replaced it with a riven textured slab a few years later which was better but not great.

When we built the last house, I was determined. This time we had slabs that had a gritty type of surface.  We made them wet in the BM and tried them out for slippiness before purchase - they were great.

Wooden decking - a little dirty and wet and it is a slip hazard.

 

Indoors I chose a vinyl tile that had texture to reduce slipping.  As @Ferdinand mentioned - cleaning the floor does become more difficult and four times a year I needed to get the steamer out and scrub the floors with the little nail brush type attachment that comes with the steamer to get the dirt that the scooba washy thing missed.  The floors would be washed every 3 days (a little rota of three areas so i’d set the scooba off every morning in one area).

 

Laminate floors should come with a health warning.  It was all over the house we currently live in.  We tried little socks for the dogs to stop them doing the cartoon running on the spot or sprawling in a heap when they turned a corner.  In the end we put cheap carpet on top as a it was causing too many issues for them.  Vets have issued warnings about laminate and linked it to an increase in joint and ligament issues in dogs.

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1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

no grip on grass.

 

Fake grass for showers? Might work in the Wintergarden of Human Delights as a Lancashire version for an outdoor shower. I think the neighbours would see it as wussy - not being properly outside and in the teeth of the howling gale.

 

More seriously, I even speculated about using nobbly professional (20mm thick) gym matting over the swimming-pool-surround mesh as a way of really fixing oldsters slipping and falling in my accessible shower, whilst draining OK. Even have samples of the latter.

 

F

Edited by Ferdinand
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42 minutes ago, Sue B said:

.

 

Indoors I chose a vinyl tile that had texture to reduce slipping.  [...]

 

Laminate floors should come with a health warning.  

[..]

 

Just to clarify here, as this sort of thing always mixes me up: is  Amtico and other LVTs considered a laminate or vinyl tile in this comparison?

Do you have examples (links or make+model) of the good and bad tiles you used?

 

Thanks!

 

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1 hour ago, dpmiller said:

it's my perception that a perfectly-smooth tile is grippier when wet than the dimpled non-slip things used round municipal swimming pools.

 

I'd love a photo of the soles of your twinkle-toes. You got summat I want - like really really want (man).

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35 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

How do vinyl tiles perform when wet?

We had industrial vinyl tiles in the kitchen at work, we dreadful.

Most if us had fallen over on a wet patch.

No point asking me what make they were, I have no idea.

Actually, I have no idea what the new flooring is called, not perfect, but a lot better.  I think it is Altro.

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Though I was dubious and spitting feathers at the cost when SWMBO bough a can, I can confirm that Cuprinol Anti Slip Decking stain does what it says on the tin. It's really, really good. We have a set of steps made from decking which tba need ripping up and burning but madam was determined to use this stain (citing the time it would take me to replace them ? ). What can I say, it works a treat.

 

305799-Cuprinol-5-Year-Ducksback-Forest-Oak1.thumb.jpg.584523271d2a49bcdd346fd1163ea9c4.jpg

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7 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

We had industrial vinyl tiles in the kitchen at work, we dreadful.

Most if us had fallen over on a wet patch.

No point asking me what make they were, I have no idea.

Actually, I have no idea what the new flooring is called, not perfect, but a lot better.  I think it is Altro.

 

The nicest LVL tiles I have seen are probably Quick Step.

 

Having had a couple of samples of different makes, there are differences in flexibility and softness of surface, as well as the texture.

 

My feeling is "softer / more yielding" would be better, but I have no proof.

 

I used a Uniclic Laminate instead, which has a somewhat matt texture.

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1 hour ago, AnonymousBosch said:

 

I'd love a photo of the soles of your twinkle-toes. You got summat I want - like really really want (man).

 

That is perhaps a relevant point. Different profiles and flexibilities of foot, and the amount of feeling available, will both affect balance.

 

Rather like the hiking boots vs climbing shoes thing.


There are also things available like rubber socks that can be removed to wash the feet on the shower seat, having successfully not slipped whilst washing the rest. Or even flip flops.

 

F

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The OP reminds me of a carpet salesman...

 

Me: I've got UFH, which carpets are suitable?

CS: All our carpets are suitable for UFH.

Me: Humm. What's the TOG value of this one?

CS: I'll go check.

5mins later..

CS: Ten.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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13 hours ago, joth said:

Do you have examples (links or make+model) of the good and bad tiles you used

 

The vinyl rules that we used were similar to Karndean but much much cheaper and imported from Italy as far as I can remember.  They have unfortunate gone bust.

 

Karndean have been recommended by many of my friends with dogs.

 

The laminate flooring that we covered with carpet was cheap, B&Q type laminate I think - it certainly didn’t look great.

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