6- Using bar mats? How water affects where and how products are used.

Water creates more than a few issues for deposition cast tops using plywood and hardwood construction.

While it may seem counter-intuitive, (no pun intended), some manufacturers do not allow you to use standard rubber bar mats. These are the 12”x18” or 4”x24” drink rail products that sometimes include beverage branding.

Quoting the text from one manufacturer’s online warranty, “Rubber mats, whether placemats, drink rail mats or service area mats tend to trap moisture and, when left sitting wet, can degrade the metal.”

The statement goes further: “We require stainless rail drink inserts for commercial bar tops and not using an insert risks the integrity of the product.”

One- Stainless inserts do prolong the life of any bartop, and I recommend them for more than just drink rail areas, as this is how they should be used in all commercial spaces.

But most manufacturers do not have this wisdom. Even after years of data from high-use, high-traffic projects, they stay the course without improving recommendations to customers.  They just make a blanket exclusion to attempt to deal with the shortcomings of their products, and this is wrong on so many levels.

In fact, you can learn more about these critical details by going to our website, entering your information, and downloading my free design pdf where I outline these very important specs for your project.  At 3 Spark Design, we have more experience integrating and specifying these details than anyone else in the deposition/cast metal industry.

Back to my point: manufacturers cannot require stainless to cover every part of your project. If so, why are they making living metal bar tops?  If rubber mats and placemats laid outside the drink rail also void the warranty, something else must be happening. This brings me to point 2:

Moisture does not degrade the metal, but it does conspire with the substrate below to introduce movement, which causes the metal to separate from the wood. Moisture destroys wooden substrates.

Now if you’re wondering what to use instead of these industry-standard rubber mats, I am curious as well.  While no recommendations are offered industry-wide, make sure you clarify with any manufacturer what products they recommend, and what can and cannot be used in coordination with their warranty.

To this point, if projects cannot be used in wet bar environments, does this exclude their use from semi-covered indoor/outdoor spaces and exclusive outdoor use where weather will have a direct impact?  Probably.

The best advice is to ask if they have ever had issues with water and describe your project and space honestly. Moisture is obviously an issue for wooden substrate products, and manufacturers know this, but are reluctant to fully convey this truth.

A major problem facing the industry is how and where you can use the product in conjunction with water.