Why Use Ground Protection Mats?
What Is The Purpose of Ground Protection Mats?
When working on any jobsite for any reason, many considerations need to be made about every aspect of the job from start to finish. One facet that is overlooked all too often is the importance of ground protection. Ground protection refers to the practice of placing down material to keep the ground from being damaged by equipment, vehicles, and people walking across it. The key solution to these concerns is to use ground protection mats!
What Are The Benefits of Ground Protection Mats?
Using ground protection mats like those offered by TerraMat helps to keep equipment from sinking into mud or other uneven surfaces. Many earth-moving machines weigh enough to wreak havoc on the underlying surfaces, eroding or tearing up dirt, grass, turf surfaces, sand, and many other types of uneven ground as they move around a jobsite. Using ground protection mats is an excellent solution, providing more stability and helping to avoid wobbling machinery and equipment sinking into soft ground. This also makes using ground protection mats a large safety upside, because more stable work surfaces increase the control on every aspect of the work. The surfaces of ground protection mats are textured for increased grip when walking or moving equipment over them, such as mats offered by TerraMat that feature different grip designs for aiding the traction of both vehicles and people walking to best suit the application.
As a temporary vehicle roadway, ground protection mats are essential to an efficient job, as well as for preserving areas of the ground that are not being altered, but additionally work as a stable walkway, which can make them handy in many situations. The mats also work well for this purpose due to their incredible load-bearing ability, with mats from TerraMat boasting up to 80 tons of weight capacity! While being able to support so much weight is a great benefit, they are still flexible and pliable, with rubber as a key ingredient in making the mats allowing them to be flexible and nearly impossible to break under strenuous conditions. They are also available in multiple sizes, all of them incredibly lightweight and easy to transport, making them a perfect choice as a portable, reusable way to build a temporary roadway or walking surface. The mats even come in multiple colors to ensure visibility in many applications. Furthermore, certain options allow light to pass through, which can further reduce damage to underlying grass if the mats will be covering it for extended lengths of time.
Events can benefit greatly from ground protection mats as well, creating temporary floors for convenience and safety in events like festivals or large parties. Another benefit to using ground protection mats this way is accessibility considerations. For instance, an outdoor wedding may use ground protection mats to build a large outdoor area with a stable, clean walking service and is crucial for accessibility during events where attendees may struggle navigating uneven ground and would benefit greatly from a more even, traction-improving surface.
Are There Easy Alternatives?
Frequently, sheets of plywood are used for ground protection, laid down to create a work surface. While it can work, using plywood sheets means that splintering, breaking of the wood, as well as waterlogging are all major issues. There is a solution to these headaches – ground protection mats! Using plywood can result in just as much hassle as not using any ground protection methods. This is because plywood cannot handle the heavy weights that ground protection mats can. Shattering a piece of plywood used in place of a ground protection mat will result in equipment getting stuck in soft soil, splinters everywhere, potential injury, and more jobsite headaches that can all be avoided. Plywood is much less consistent, especially once exposed to the elements, and a surprise break could result in serious trouble on the job. In addition, using plywood means sacrificing much of the surface’s stability, especially on uneven or sloped ground. With those disadvantages, choosing proper ground protection mats is a no-brainer!
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