Oh, that’s a great question — and honestly, one of the first things I check before I buy any outdoor seating myself! Nobody wants to slide right off the moment they sit down after a rain shower. So, short answer: yes, every park bench in our current collection is built with a non-slip surface in mind, even when it’s wet.
Here’s what that actually means in real life, not just marketing speak. The wood we use — typically thermally modified ash or sustainably sourced teak — isn’t given some glossy, slick varnish. Instead, it’s lightly brushed during the finishing process. This opens up the grain just enough to create micro-texture, so your hands and clothes find natural grip. You can feel it if you run your palm across a dry slat; it’s smooth but not slippery, more like a well-sanded cutting board than a polished tabletop. When water hits that surface, it beads up and drains along shallow grooves rather than forming a continuous film that turns into a slide. Most of our metal benches use a powder-coated aluminum or steel slat with an embedded fine-stipple pattern that gives the same effect — it works a lot like the grip tape on a skateboard, just much more subtle to the eye.
We also test this obsessively. We’ve got a little rig in our workshop where we spray bench slats with a measured amount of water and then use a weighted fabric pad to measure slip resistance at a standard angle. Our benches consistently pass the European EN 1341 slip-resistance requirements for outdoor pedestrian surfaces, and we’ve often had them tested even beyond that because we know municipalities and cafe owners get nervous about liability.
A couple of design details make a big difference in the real world, too. You’ll notice the slats on our timber benches aren’t super wide — they’re kept around 50mm, with generous gaps between them. That spacing breaks up water puddling and lets air circulate to dry the surface faster. On the contoured seats, we orient the grain or the texture so that the micro-grooves run across the bench, not along it, which gives your legs much better purchase when you’re sitting. Little things, I know, but they matter when an elderly person or a kid in smooth rain pants plops down.
Of course, nothing stays perfectly grippy with a thick layer of moss or bio-slime, so we recommend a quick wipe or a seasonal wash with mild soap and water. But assuming you’re just worried about a typical rainy Tuesday, you can sit down with confidence. I’ve even tested this myself countless times — including one memorable morning with a cup of coffee and a deliberately soaked bench right after a thunderstorm. Didn’t budge an inch.