Installing a new gymnasium floor can be a challenge. If you're choosing hardwood flooring, you'll often need to schedule downtime for your gym, both for the installation and for the time needed for the flooring to acclimate once it's sanded and finished.
Q: We want to go with a hardwood flooring solution for our gymnasium, but we are concerned about lifecycle costs and ongoing maintenance requirements. What are our alternatives?
A: You can still get a hardwood surface without the attendant maintenance difficulties when you go with boards that have a factory-cured finish. The boards feature a top layer of Canadian Maple, Oak or Ash that is factory-finished, plywood load distribution panels and a bottom layer of foam padding.
This type of surfacing meets and exceeds all requirements for DIN certification, which is widely regarded as the best method for evaluating sports floors. This certification includes testing of shock absorption, vertical deflection, deformation control, rolling load, ball rebound and friction.
This type of surface will also lower your overall lifecycle cost for your flooring, when compared with traditional maple flooring. How? Because it does not need to be sanded and finished on an annual basis, you save a great deal on maintenance costs over the long term. With an average of 10 to 15 years before it needs refinishing, it is made to last and drastically reduce your maintenance needs.
Q: We want to use hardwood flooring for our gymnasium surface, but we're concerned about the length of time it will take to install. We want to minimize our gym's downtime. What should we consider?
A: Wood boards with a factory cured finish eliminate the need for initial sanding and finishing, which greatly reduces downtime. Furthermore, you can find a lock-in-place engineered system that can be installed in just one to two days for a regular-sized basketball court. The quick installation and no need to acclimatize your surface mean far less downtime for your gym.
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