We have linoleum floors and they used to look awful and the paraffin got
tracked all over the building. We had offices 100ft away blaming us for
"slippery" floors.  We approached the problem several ways.
1.  We posted slippery floor signs at the entrance to Histology.
2.  We contracted with a rug guy to put carpeted runners on the hallway
floors approaching Histo and extended one into the lab so outsiders can at
least come in as far as the end of the runner and speak to us or drop off
requests, etc.  The runners remove a lot of the wax flakes from our shoes
before we get too far from the lab, too. The runners are taken away for
cleaning every two weeks and replaced with clean ones.
3.  Everyone working in Histology is told to wear soft soled shoes
(preferrably "tennis" shoes).
4.  We have contracted with Housekeeping to strip our floors every two weeks
and lay commercial wax; one extra benefit for us has been that our lab is
always sparkling.
5.  Techs are encouraged to scrape the floor surrounding their work area
daily if they are the type that drop a lot of wax on the floor.

The only fall we've had in the past 2-3 years has been a high-heeled visitor
that strayed from the carpet.  There is always a "falling" hazard when you
have transitions from carpet to linoleum/tile.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom T. McNemar [mailto:TMcNemar@lmhealth.org]
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2000 8:25 AM
To: Histonet (E-mail)
Subject: Slippery floor...


Does anybody know of a type of non-skid, non-slip flooring suitable for a
histo lab?  The paraffin makes our floor treacherous!  We have dealt with
this problem by using thin rubber mats taped to the floor.  This makes for a
pretty ugly floor and when the tape wears they come up anyway.  I am hoping
to find some type of tile that can replace the existing but it needs to be
easily maintained.  Anybody know of anything?

Tom Mc Nemar
Pathology Supervisor
Licking Memorial Hospital
Newark, Ohio