Workbench on floor or foam tiles?

[Paul Schaefer]

I have bad feet, so I'm covering my shop floor with 2' square interlocking foam tiles from HF. Should I cut them to fit around my workbench so the bench is resting directly on the concrete floor, or just put the bench on top of the tiles? I'm fine with either route, just wondering if there's any advantage to having the workbench directly on the concrete as opposed to on the tile.

[Jim Becker]

A workbench needs to have solid contact with the surface it's sitting on so it will not move when you are using it. Personally, I'd cut around it for that reason.

[Andrew Seemann]

Have the bench rest directly on the floor. It will be much more stable and solid, especially if you do any pounding on it. I've got interlocking foam tiles also, but I just have them were I usually stand, mostly because everything in the shop is on wheels, and some the heavier things don't roll well over the foam.

[Paul Schaefer]

That was what I thought, but wanted to get a sanity check before I went to cutting. Thanks, guys.

And Andrew - yeah, it's a pain in the butt to roll anything over the foam tiles. Messes everything up. I try to avoid it as much as possible.

[Steve Mathews]

Originally I had foam tiles surrounding my workbench but for some reason put them underneath after a shop rearrangement. What I discovered is the surrounding tiles seem to not shift as much as before and the table is just as solid if not more so. The inexpensive HF tiles are so light that my very heavy table compresses them to almost nothing. It also seems to fill in any irregularities in the concrete surface making the table more stable. Before I could with a lot of effort slide the table along on the bare concrete floor, now not at all. That's my experience FWIW.