A high-quality gym floor is a significant investment for your facility. However, many common activities, such as commencements, proms, conventions and other special events pose a risk for wood floors. Without proper care, your floors can get scuffed and scraped by equipment, furniture, and chairs, as well as street shoes. If food and drinks are served at an event, spills are possible. Maple flooring, the most common type of gym floor, can even be damaged by improper cleaning and maintenance. With all of these hazards facing your gym floor, it’s wise to use every tool available to you to extend the life of your floor. Gym floor covers carry a number of benefits, including helping your floor perform at it’s best for longer periods of time. Keep reading to find out how The team at Sports Floors, Inc. can have you evaluate the types and benefits of gym floor covers.
Save on Gym Floor Maintenance
As you know, gym floors need daily, monthly, and yearly maintenance. This is already a big commitment and a significant investment of time and money. Even with daily cleaning and careful use, gym floors require regular maintenance. Annual re-coating is recommended, with more frequent treatments for floors that see heavy daily use. If you’re already spending thousands of dollars on and several weeks each year on maintenance, additional maintenance to repair avoidable damage is incredibly frustrating.
Covering a gym floor correctly when used for anything other than athletics will protect the wood itself and well as the finish. If the finish is damaged, you’ll need to completely sand, reseal, repaint and refinish your gym floor, which is a big project that can take as long as a month! Plus, there’s a limit to how many times you can sand a floor before it will need to be replaced. Keeping your gym floor in good condition will reduce maintenance and increase its lifespan.
Gymnasiums are Multi-Purpose
Is your gym used for many different activities? School gyms typically are. They might be used for graduation and award ceremonies, dances, holiday events, lectures, and science fairs. They can also be rented out for civic group meetings, fundraisers, church services, or concerts. They also become the hub of a small town when disaster strikes.
All of these events can potentially damage your floor! Participants might track in dirt of dusk, while furniture can scrap scratch and dent. A gym floor cover allows you to convert your gym area into an event area quickly and efficiently. A gym floor cover allows you to safely welcome large crowds into your facility, and provide an opportunity for unique social events that bring your community together that might not fit in other facilities. Using a gym floor cover for these special events will greatly minimize damage.
Gym Coverings Provide Enhanced Safety
While vinyl and carpet gym floor covers of all types tend to be more slip-resistant than finished hardwood, higher-end styles are optionally available with non-slip textures and patterns. These offer additional protection against slip and fall accidents if the floor gets wet. Installing a non-slip gym floor cover for public events can reduce the risk of injury and potential liability.
Carpet Tile Covers
Carpet tile covers are high-performance, portable floor cover systems. They’re the most expensive court covers we sell at Sports Floors, Inc., but they also offer the most protection. They look different than most court covers because they’re made out of carpet on top as opposed to vinyl, come in large squares (3′ x 6′), and are stored on storage carts that are flat-bottomed instead of rolled. Assembly is quick and easy, with no tape needed.
Light Duty Carpet Roll Covers
A light-duty carpet roll cover is more economically priced than a carpet tile cover but is still a little more expensive than a vinyl cover. It comes in rolls like a vinyl cover but has a polyester topcloth on the top of it and a non-skid extruded backing with a moisture barrier on the back. It’s stored on racks that roll out when the floor is ready to be laid and roll back up when the floor is ready to be removed.
Vinyl Covers
Vinyl court covers are the most cost-efficient covers on the market, and they come in a variety of weights. The most common we see are 18-22 ounces, though they go up much higher than that. Vinyl covers have a PVC coating on both sides and have a resilient internal reinforced polyester core. They are stored on racks that roll out when the cover is ready to be laid and roll up when the cover is ready to be removed.
Materials are Purpose Formulated
Today’s gym floor coverings, coated with a material such as PVC polyester mesh, are extremely durable, fire retardant, waterproof, rot, and mildew resistant, antifungal and antibacterial. This means that you won’t put your cover away one day and find it unusable or in desperate need of cleaning when you get it out again months down the road.
There are numerous types of gym floor covers out there, but here at Sports Floors, Inc., we typically see requests for three kinds: carpet tiles, light-duty carpet rolls, and vinyl. Each has its own unique benefits and their own unique price. We generally recommend carpet covers whenever possible, because they’re easier to maintain and repair. Additionally, Vinyl covers tend to bunch up and if something is spilled on it just sits there. With carpet covers, they lay down heavy and are able to absorb some spills.
The team at Sports Floors, Inc. is happy to help our Mid-South clients find solutions that fit their situations and keep their gym floors healthy for many years to come. Contact us today to find out how we can help you.