Around 2 million people in the UK have vision impairment. It is therefore essential to design and maintain people’s homes & commercial environments to address this. Using colours that reflect light and contrasting colours help to differentiate objects/walls from a surrounding helping to make most of a persons sight.

A colour’s Light Reflectance Value (LRV) measures the amount of visible and usable light that reflects from (or absorbs into) a surface. In other words, LRV measures the percentage of light a surface colour reflects.

LRV and Ceramic Tiles

We provide Light Reflective Values for our Nicobond Ikon Plain Colour collection to help you determine the best suited tiles in order to achieve the required contrast. Ceramic wall and floor tiles with skirting tiles must match the walls in order to meet the recommendations of BS8300 which states ‘Whilst there is considerable confidence in recommending a difference in LRV (Light reflective value) of 30 points or more (the good zone) there is also some evidence to suggest that a difference of around 20 points might still be acceptable, provided the illuminance on the surfaces is 200 lux or more.

To avoid giving the wrong impression about the size of a room, skirtings should have the same LRV as the wall so that the junction between the skirting and the floor marks the extent of the room’. A test method for measuring the LRV of flat surfaces with opaque materials, including those coated with non-opaque coatings, or coverings and multi-coloured sufaces, is described in BS 8493.