What Is Your Best Athletic Flooring Option?
By: Steve Frailey
Here are some considerations as you evaluate and ultimately select flooring for your school’s gymnasium.
Create an outline for selecting your sports floor.
Make a list of the uses you wish for your facility, such as basketball, volleyball, indoor soccer, meetings, assemblies, banquets, etc. Today, most groups adding sports need that court to be more than just a sports hall. Listing what events you intend to use the space for will make it easier to make a flooring selection. Nearly all gymnasiums are intended for many events, along with sports play.
Prioritize your uses.
Make a timeline. For example, five days will be used for sports play, including basketball, volleyball, and the like, along with aerobics/fitness. Next, project your expectations. Such as, your expectation might be for three nights to host meetings or assemblies, as well as the possible rental for parties/reunions/celebrations.
Research alternatives.
There are a variety of products that can meet your sports needs.
For high-quality sports play, the following types of products are capable of competition-level sports play:
* Wood floors with rubber pads for comfort
* Wood floors over sleeper system
* Performance synthetic floors
Also available are multipurpose sports floors, which help you combine sports and multipurpose activities within your facility. There are a variety of alternatives available, including:
* Interlock sports courts
* Poured in place flooring
* Synthetic sports flooring
* Rubber sheet sports flooring
* Sports carpet—level loop with game lines
Consider total costs.
Yearly maintenance cost of flooring can make a large total cost difference.
All floors will still require cleaning and dust mopping. Synthetic floors, rubber floors, poured in place floors, and interlock floors can be cleaned with auto scrubbers—one-step process clean, rinse, and wet vac. Hardwood floors should never allow auto scrubbers for cleaning; damp mopping and dust mop only.
Hardwood flooring requires annual screening and urethane coating costing $1.00-$1.50 per square foot, depending on your local market.
Hardwood flooring will require a full refinish every four to seven years, depending on use, and an additional $3 to $4 per square foot should be budgeted. Hardwood should not be used for multipurpose events (sport play only), unless you budget refinishing every two years, again adding $3 to $4 per square foot).
Interlock, poured in place, and rubber sheet flooring will also require similar cost of cleaning and rinsing.
Synthetic floors without a specific commercial performance cooked in urethane will require semi-annual waxing and stripping, adding an additional $1.50 per square foot in addition to cleaning cost.
Determine which products make sense for your project and conduct a field trip to view.
Contact manufacturers to find locations of installations near your facility. Look for not only new installations but also installations at least three years old to determine longevity and real maintenance requirements.
If the manufacturer doesn’t have local installations or local installation crews available, you might want to consider dropping him from your list; it might be simply too risky. Why doesn’t he have installations?
Remember, don’t expect for you or your committee to have the background to find some new source of flooring that no one else is using. You want established products with recognizable quality references. This decision is too major to become someone’s guinea pig.
Observe and also ask questions on your installation field trip.
Questions you should ask include:
* How does it look? Will it provide the image you wish to portray?
* How well does this product play for sports you intend to play?
* How do you maintain the floor and how often?
* What equipment and chemicals are necessary to maintain floor?
* Can it handle hosting multipurpose events, if needed?
Determine the best value for your project.
You have educated yourself on what is available, and researched reference installations to determine both the image and cleaning and maintenance upkeep requirements. You understand the budgeted costs necessary for each. At this stage, it should become rather clear which product is the correct product for your facility.
Get hard bid for your project with details that you have selected.
These details could include court sizes and colors (field, border, circles, etc.). Don’t forget to factor in any special custom logos that you want added, as well as game lines required (basketball, volleyball, etc. and colors for game lines).
Are bids within expected budget?
If so, approve and begin enjoying your new facility. If not, determine why and make adjustments, such as different product or fewer add-ons.
Steve Frailey has more than 25 years of experience as a resilient flooring specialist. He is the owner of Specialty Floors, an independent sales agency specializing in sports and recreation flooring, www.spflooring.com.
Sidebar
Modular Flooring for the Private School
By Fred Jones
Modular flooring is a fast-growing and exciting option for indoor sports surfacing for the private school customer. Modular sports flooring systems have been around since the mid 1970s. Indoor sports applications have naturally evolved from tough, outdoor experience.
A modular floor system is made from interlocking square tiles installed over a rubber underlayment. The tiles are generally about one foot square and are made from man-made composite materials. The top playing surface is smooth and solid. The tiles are not glued or mechanically fastened to the sub-floor. Rather, they interlock with one another to create a monolithic, continuous floor system, covering the entire surface wall to wall. The interlocking system is formed by each tile having two “male” sides and two “female” sides.
A modular surface can be installed over virtually any hard sub floor. Applications include either new construction, upgrading, or renovating existing facilities. The tiles will conform to minor irregularities in the sub floor, but significant flaws should be repaired prior to installation.
The tiles themselves are made from very strong materials for longevity and durability. They come in a wide variety of colors, which run completely through the material. The rubber underlayment provides comfort and resiliency. Thus, the system by design provides the owner with both practical and playing benefits.
A modular surface makes an ideal playing surface for almost any sport. Basketball, volleyball, inline hockey, deck hockey, soccer, futsol, field hockey, Awana, and many other gym class games all go well on modular surfacing.
Working within the dimensions of the individual modules, inbounds areas, out-of-bounds areas or different fields and courts can be delineated by changing the tile colors. Other desired games lines, including circles and arcs, can be painted out, with multiple courts using different colors per court.
One of the distinct advantages of modular floors is the relative speed in which a court or gym can be installed. A typical 5,000 to 8,000 square foot gymnasium can be installed in just two days. Any desired game lines are painted on, so the court is ready to play as soon as the paint is dry.
Another advantage of a modular surface is the low maintenance and upkeep. Just normal dry or wet mopping is all that is necessary to maintain the floor. There are no routine or annual maintenance tasks.
Most modular surfacing is intended and used as permanent flooring. And, the tough materials ensure this happens. However, a truly unique feature of a modular surface is that the tiles can safely be unlatched and re-assembled. This allows for easy removal and replacement should any tile get damaged. It also allows for entire court portability as required by temporary installations or leased facilities. This portability feature also allows for alternative financing possibilities, such as a lease/purchase arrangement.
For today’s Christian school, an interlocking modular surface will provide all the practical and playing benefits of a more traditional wood floor, with much less maintenance and upkeep, at only a fraction of the cost.
Fred Jones is vice president of products and services for Mateflex Modular Surfaces, www.mateflex.com.
Product Roundup: Carpet & Flooring
ABC Feelings Carpets
Available in three different sizes, the ABC Feelings carpet allows several children into a setting, thereby helping the children to learn to interact amongst themselves about their feelings. Carpets are not only fun and educational; they have a 10-year warranty and class one flammability, meeting government and school specifications. The ABC Feelings system is a proven method to allow children to recognize and then express feelings, shifting the energy from upset to understanding. These powerful award-winning tools give teacher the ability to address the "real" emotion that the child is feeling.
www.abcfeelings.com
Awana Game Floors from Electra Tarp
Current trends show valued space is often required to serve for numerous functions. Electra Tarp’s custom Awana game floor offers the versatility to turn your space into a multipurpose facility. The flexibility of using this game floor on any surface gives boundless options where this activity can be held. The game floor is manufactured using durable reinforced vinyl with painted Awana game circle. Remove the game floor by simply folding and storing away. Whether your space is large or small, a game floor can be constructed to fit your needs.
www.electratarp.com
DEMCO
Energize your classroom with winning carpets designed by educators like you. DEMCO’s enormous carpet collection has something for every age and taste. Use rugs to designate an area for storytime, teen studies, or just relaxing. Use area rugs and carpets to add warmth and color, as well as give a unique ambience. They are an inexpensive and quick way to refresh your room or update your environment. All rugs are durable, easy to maintain, and affordable. Remember, private and religious schools get a discount from DEMCO.
www.demco.com
Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association
The Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association (MFMA) is the authoritative source of innovative technical and general information for maple flooring and related sports flooring systems. Through cooperative member programs, MFMA establishes product quality, performance, and installation guidelines to educate end users about safety, performance, and maintenance issues and promotes the use of maple flooring products worldwide. Now the MFMA has combined all our information in one easy place, the MFMA Sourcebook.
www.maplefloor.org
Action Floor
Action Floor Systems, a leading supplier of premium maple sports floors and synthetic multiuse surfaces, offers the industry’s only water-based, solvent-free, synthetic polyurethane top coat. The environmentally friendly Action Herculan top coat requires no masks or building evacuation during application. Herculan is a high-performance, monolithic, nonporous floor. It’s an ideal choice for multiuse applications with the performance characteristics you want in a quality athletic floor, and the durability and versatility to handle non-sports uses.
www.actionfloors.com
PROTECT-ALL from Oscoda Plastics
PROTECT-ALL is a commercial-grade flooring material made from 100% recycled vinyl. Certified by the National Floor Safety Institute, PROTECT-ALL Commercial Flooring helps to reduce slips and falls. A full quarter inch thick, PROTECT-ALL can withstand extreme weight loads and high-traffic patterns. PROTECT-ALL is available in eight colors, varying sheet sizes and thicknesses with matte or texture top surfaces, and an optional factory applied gloss finish. It is also available in interlocking and square tiles.
www.oscodaplastics.com
Robbins Pulastic Floors
Pulastic floors deliver decades of durability and superior wear resistance for any indoor application. All Pulastic systems feature high-quality polyurethane resin and a resurfaceable wear layer, providing ideal traction, correct ball rebound and excellent shock and sound absorption. Pulastic floors meets LEED Certification requirements for use of recycled products and are free of mercury, lead and other heavy materials. Pulastic is strong enough to stand up to heavy tables, chairs and bleacher loads, all while offering a surface that is comfortable and long lasting.
www.robbinsfloor.com
Rubber Indoor/Outdoor Playground Tiles by Traction
Traction Sports Flooring is offering rubber paver tiles at factory-direct prices. Perfect for play areas, indoor or outdoor, these rubber tiles are made with high-quality EPDM rubber. Tiles measure 20 inches by 20 inches and are available in green or red. Tiles are available from 1 inch up to 2.5 inches in thickness. These tiles have not been tested for fall heights, so they cannot be used in areas that require approved Federal Drop Height products.
www.nasftraction.com
LG RexCourt Resilient Sports Flooring from Gerbert
LG RexCourt is the ultimate multi-purpose flooring solution. LG RexCourt offers the look of hard wood with unmatched shock absorption, elasticity and stability, superior noise level reduction, and great style. RexCourt is engineered for outstanding durability with a special polyurethane coating for easy maintenance and economical, long-lasting good looks. And, the exclusive antibacterial surface coating provides a healthier environment for everyone. Gerbert Limited is the exclusive U.S. distributor of LG RexCourt sports floors.
www.gerbertltd.com
