Make Your Concrete Ramps ADA Compliant

Confused over how to make your concrete ramps ADA compliant? There are many factors to consider when selecting a detectable warning product, including color, contrast, durability, UV stability, resistance to chemical reagents, slip-resistance, wear-resistance, impact resistance, porosity, etc.

The choice of detectable warnings is staggering. The available options include rubber mats, stamped concrete, thermally-applied, aluminum, stainless steel, cast iron, SMC plastic, brick, ceramic tile, vitrified polymer composite, and more.

Of prime concern should be detectability, durability, and cost.

Consider the segment of your population that these detectable warnings are intended to serve; those with visual impairments. In terms of detectability, there are three ways in which the intended user can sense the warning: under-foot, visually, and audibly.

Concrete Ramps ADA Compliant

If the detectable warning consists of domes of the proper geometry and spacing, then for the most part, when they are newly installed, nearly all of the products listed above can be sensed-under-foot. The exceptions tend to be stamped concrete where the domes are mal-formed, missing, or have broken due to the inferior strength of the domes (which lack aggregate). An important factor to consider here is whether the product will be resistant to wear, so that the domes continue to maintain their specified height after years of heavy foot traffic. Aluminum oxide is a compound which is rated 9 on Moh’s scale of hardness (where diamond is 10 and iron is 6). The addition of aluminum oxide to a product can help make a product extremely wear-resistant.

The second way that the detectable warnings can be sensed, is visually. Many people with visual disabilities are not blind. They simply have poor or limited vision, or have lost perception of colors. An important factor to consider when choosing a detectable warning is to settle on one which has highly visible colors; one which offer a great amount of contrast with surrounding substrate, and one which will maintain its intended color by not fading and not absorbing stains. Bricks, soft rubber, thermally applied, and stamped concrete are examples of products with will tend to soak up stains from oils, soil, food, drink, berries, and the like. It is important that a detectable warning tile be non-porous. Additionally, a tile which will not absorb water is much less susceptible to damage from freeze-thaw cycles.

The third way that the detectable warnings can be sensed, is audibly. Some products do nothing to amplify sound on cane contact. Rubber, bricks, thermally applied, and stamped concrete are examples. On the other hand, Armor-Tile engineers into the product, a system which amplifies the tapping or sweeping of a long cane, to let users know that they have encountered the warning tile.

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