Pendulum testing
across County Durham.

Why County Durham needs real PTV data.

Manufacturing and engineering sites across County Durham deal with oil, coolant and detergent contamination that sled-based friction tests cannot reliably measure. The HSE is explicit: on contaminated floors, the pendulum is the method that produces defensible PTV data.

Rail engineering at Darlington, chemicals on Teesside, port operations at Hartlepool and higher education at Durham.

Pendulum testing. Not opinion.

The pendulum method — defined in BS 7976 and BS EN 16165, and referenced throughout HSE guidance — is the only test HSE considers reliable on wet or contaminated floors. A rubber slider swings from a fixed height and drags across the test surface for exactly 127mm; energy lost to friction is recorded as a Pendulum Test Value (PTV) on a scale of 0 to 150.

HSE classifies any PTV below 25 as a high slip potential. 25–35 is moderate. A PTV of 36 or above, measured wet and dry with the correct reference slider, is the benchmark for a floor considered safe under normal use. Every report we produce in County Durham is issued under our UKAS ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation (Lab 7933) — the method, the technician and the equipment are all independently audited.