Non slip tub and floor treatment in Southeast Michigan

Most bathroom falls happen on a wet surface somebody has stood on ten thousand times before. Non slip tub treatment changes that surface, and it is the cheapest safety work available in a house. Our bathroom repair crew treats the tub or shower floor and the bathroom floor outside it, because the step out is where a surprising share of the falls actually happen.

Why a tub gets slippery over time

Tubs are made with a texture on the floor, and that texture wears. Years of cleaning products, soap residue and abrasive scrubbing take the tread off a porcelain or acrylic surface until it is effectively polished. The tub looks the same and behaves completely differently.

Soap scum makes it worse, because a thin film of it is slicker than the surface underneath. A tub that has been cleaned with the wrong product for a decade can be dangerous while looking spotless.

What the treatment actually is

An etching treatment works chemically on porcelain, enamel and ceramic, opening microscopic texture into the glaze. The surface stays the same color and the same appearance, and it grips when wet. There is nothing sitting on top to peel off later.

A coating treatment is a clear applied layer used where the substrate is fiberglass or acrylic, which cannot be etched. It works well and it is a coating, which means it has a service life and will eventually need redoing. We tell you which one your tub is getting and what that means.

Adhesive strips and mats, and what they cost

Stick on strips work at first. Then the edges lift, water gets underneath, and the space between the strip and the tub grows something that will not come out. Removing old strips leaves adhesive that takes considerable effort to clean off, and sometimes the tub finish comes with it.

Rubber mats with suction cups are better and they need lifting and drying after every use, which nobody does. A mat left in place traps water against the tub floor permanently. A treated surface has none of these problems because there is nothing to lift, clean under or replace.

The floor outside the tub matters just as much

People concentrate on the tub and then step out onto polished ceramic with wet feet. Large format floor tile with a high gloss glaze is common in bathrooms remodeled in the last fifteen years and it is one of the slipperiest surfaces in a house when wet.

The same etching treatment works on floor tile and changes nothing about how it looks. It is worth doing at the same visit, because treating the tub and leaving the landing zone is half a job.

What the visit covers

  • Surface stripped of soap film and cleaner residue so the treatment can work
  • Old adhesive strips removed and the adhesive cleaned back where they existed
  • Etching or coating applied to suit the material, tub floor and shower base
  • Bathroom floor tile treated in the area around the tub and the basin
  • Surface rinsed, neutralized where required, and tested before we leave

Cleaning a treated surface without undoing it

The texture an etching treatment creates is microscopic, which means soap film can sit in it and hide it. A treated tub cleaned with a soap based product will feel slippery again within a few months, and the treatment has not failed, it is buried.

We say what to clean it with and, more usefully, what to stop using. It is one change to the cleaning cupboard and it is the difference between a treatment that lasts years and one that lasts a season.

How long it lasts, and what wears it out

An etched surface is part of the glaze rather than a layer on it, so there is nothing to peel and nothing to re apply on a schedule. What ends it is abrasive cleaning, which polishes the texture back out over years the same way it removed the factory tread in the first place.

A coating on fiberglass or acrylic is a different proposition and has a finite life measured in years rather than decades. We say which one your tub got and roughly when to expect to think about it again, rather than leaving you to find out by slipping.

Refinished tubs, and asking first

A tub that has been professionally refinished has a coating on it rather than its original glaze, and an etching treatment attacks a coating differently than it attacks porcelain. Applying the wrong process to a refinished surface can damage it visibly and there is no undoing that.

We ask whether the tub has ever been resurfaced, and if nobody knows, we test in a spot the eye never reaches before treating the whole floor. In a house bought recently, that history is often unavailable, which is exactly when the test matters.

What it will not do

A treated surface reduces the chance of a foot sliding. It does nothing about balance, about lifting a leg over a tub wall, or about somebody having nothing to hold while they turn. It is one part of the answer and it is the cheapest part.

Where somebody is already unsteady, the treatment belongs with bars anchored into structure and a handheld shower, which between them handle the getting in, the staying upright and the washing. We would rather do the three together than have somebody think the tub has been made safe.

The claim we will not make

The Americans with Disabilities Act governs public accommodations rather than private homes. No surface treatment makes a house compliant with a federal standard, and nothing anybody applies to a tub removes the risk of a fall. What it does is improve the grip of one surface, measurably, for years.

Rentals, and the tub in a unit you do not live in

Landlords across Washtenaw and Wayne counties treat tubs at turnover for a reason. A worn tub floor in a rented unit is a risk somebody else is carrying on your behalf, and the treatment lasts far longer than a tenancy.

It fits naturally into a turnover punch list, when the unit is empty and the bathroom can be out of use for a few hours while the surface cures.

When this sits inside a wider plan

Where we work across Southeast Michigan

We take these calls across Washtenaw, Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston and Monroe counties from Platt Road in Ypsilanti, including Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor and Plymouth.

Get the surface treated

Tell us whether the tub is porcelain, enamel or fiberglass, and whether there are old strips to come off first. View our Portfolio to see the bathroom work our crews do, or contact us now for a free quote.