Mat Wells yay or nay and if yay what mat?

[Beau]

Morning all.

 

We are plugging away at our farmhouse renovation and doing a bit of work on our internal entrance room. We need a really good mat (suggestions welcome) and are thinking of setting it into a mat well to contain any dry grit and mud that might try to escape. We have a tiled, unheated outer porch for dumping filthy farm coats and boots, but then we are often coming in from the yard in shoes after shopping, etc., and removing shoes in the warm entrance room. This is a working farm and we are not looking at Grand Designs perfection, more a good practical utility solution.

 

Thanks

[Russell griffiths]

Depends what door you have, we have a mat well simply because a lot of the modern low threshold doors are very low to the finished floor, so you physically can’t put a mat on top of the floor or the door won’t open. 
also with the low doors they tend to trap small stones and scratch the floor, the mat wel allows the stones to fall lower allowing the door to open. 

[Nickfromwales]

As above, even though I dislike the things. 
 

Just remember to make two mats so you can replace the dirty one with a clean one, giving you time to pressure wash and dry the dirty one, and repeat. 

[BotusBuild]

We have one of these, albeit outside, but I dont see any reason it won't work in a mat well.

A good shake occasionally and it's clean. Would work in an internal entrance/boot room.

 

https://musthaveideas.co.uk/products/dirt-defender

[jack]

We have recessed mat wells at our front door and utility room door. I think they work really well (pardon the pun). They look better than having a mat lying on the floor, imo.

 

The mats we have are rubber-backed coir. We don't do more than vacuum them now and again, and they seem to have worn fine after 10 years of constant use. 

 

I seem to recall it was a little difficult/expensive to get a mat large enough for one of the wells, which is admittedly very wide.   

 

We didn't do a well for our back door, because it's right in the kitchen and would have looked odd. As it turned out, the gap underneath that door is so small that we can't have any sort of mat there, which isn't ideal. If I were doing that one again, I might have worked out a way to do a shallow well, perhaps sized to accept carpet tiles. 

[Beau]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. 

 

No problems with door clearance as for whatever reason the inner door is set up as you can see in the picture. The floor under the carpet tiles is suspended so no problems setting it in when I replace the existing, non water resistant, no T&G chipboard. Really like the idea of two mats and rotating them in between cleans 

[saveasteading]

1 hour ago, jack said:

better than having a mat lying on the floor

AS mentioned above... clearance is a big deal. I've got 2 doors where mats sit too high and the door hit them. Not my mistake obv.. it was  a concrete and lino floor and just putting tiles down caused a clash.    Next time I woul cut out  matwell.

 

Thinks.... don't put ufh pipes right at the doors.

 

[saveasteading]

This discussion prompted a lunchtime discussion.... so has been very timely.

So it's decided to have a recessed matwell to the front door. We will box around an area on top of the pir so that ufh doesn't wander over. Then screed leaving a void. Them bring up to the necessary level in latex, then form a well with angle.

And to sliding doors, just an over-mat that can be removed when we want the brochure look for the floor tiling.

[BadgerBodger]

Mat well for main doors every time. 
 

Rubber backed coir.

 

Comes in various depths. 
 

Cut to size. 
 

If you want something a bit more you can go with something like Forbo Coral. It’s industrial but they do some more „premium” colourways and patterns…

[Stratman]

This stuff is good: https://www.remlandcarpets.co.uk/commercial-flooring/entrance-matting/super-magnum-1m-2m-wide

 

Ive used it a few times and it's thin enough to use without a well if adjacent to carpet, laminate, etc. just an edging strip.

[saveasteading]

I'd never read up on this so has been interesting. One of the sellers had good info on use class. Light domestic, light office, heavy commercial, including how much water it could hold! 6 litres/m2 is a lot. Thicknesses not so easy. 

It's potentially tricky and messy to retrofit so needs thinking through.