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Why You Should Buy Summit Mats
At first glance, choosing a stall mat
looks easy. They all look alike to the average person - black, rubber, heavy. It is true
that nearly all stall mats start out as old car, truck or bus tires. That’s good.
Summit has sold over 1 million stall mats and in the process has saved more than 20
million tires from going to the dump or otherwise polluting our earth.
Summit is extremely careful, however, to select only traded-in tires
or tires that never passed inspection at the tire plant. We also use the scrap from tire
and tube manufacturing and gasket makers, rubber that’s never been on the pavement.
We don’t use tires that have lain in scrap heaps for years or that have been
contaminated with other waste.
Summit’s mats are designed and made especially for stalls. Some
sellers of stall mats are really conveyor belt manufacturers who sell their belting as
stall mats. Some others will sell you mats made for roof walkways or sound-deadening
panels. They figure a horse is just a horse. Not us.
We’re horse people - just like you. Sure, stall mats cut mucking
time in half and pay for themselves in bedding and labor savings. But we want your horse
on the safest, most comfortable, and most durable mat possible, not on just a piece of
rubber.
The majority of mats sold today, such as those you typically find in
a farm or discount store, are not revulcanized mats. They are “bound” mats,
meaning they are shreds or crumbs of tires that are cooked with urethane, a flammable and
toxic glue. Oh, it’s great glue to be sure, but glue it is. The glue is all that
holds the rubber together, and when the glue breaks, and break it will, the rubber and the
mat can fall apart.
We think of making mats like you’d make a cake. The batter,
when mixed, forms a homogeneous product. The flour doesn’t just stick to the other
ingredients. All the ingredients combine, and when baked, make a cake that is perfectly
blended and textured.
Most mat makers use urethane because they do not have presses strong
enough or hot enough to vulcanize. Revulcanization takes the same tire shreds and crumb
rubber, blends them with some important additives, and recooks them into one solid block
forming the strongest possible mat. Mats made in a “bound” process flake and
wear out far more quickly.
It’s easy to test a mat to see if it’s “bound.”
Take a key or a putty knife (sometimes your fingernail will do) and scrape the edge of the
mat. If some rubber flakes off, chances are it’s a urethane bound mat. If you can get
it to flake, just think what your horse will do to it!
All Summit rubber stall mats are 100% fully revulcanized for lasting
durability. We guarantee it!
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