Purchasing a surface for your facility can often be a confusing and thankless job. Every manufacturer or distributor can go into a lot of data about why their sports flooring is better or more appropriate for your needs, and it all seems to make sense when it’s explained to you, i.e. area elastic, point elastic, DIN systems, ASTM standards, standard deformation, force reduction, resilience. None of this is likely to be a topic you’re familiar with, unless you’re a mechanical engineer.
Still, your sports flooring is a major investment. For basketball and group exercise especially, you should look at flooring as the most important piece of equipment involved in those activities. If the flooring is inadequate or performing badly at your facility, you can watch more money go to repair and/or replacement costs. It should also be a primary goal of yours that your members are performing in a safe environment. These days, it’s not so much fear of being sued that is an issue, but rather that your customers may choose to perform their favorite activities at the club down the street that features better flooring.
So, what’s the answer? Do your homework. The first thing you should do before calling any sports surfacing company is make a list of what the room will be used for. Will you have meetings with chairs in that room? Will it be used for not only aerobics, but also spinning? Will there be free weights as well as selectorized machines? If you can tell each manufacturer what activities will be performed on a floor, they can be much more helpful in guiding you to a floor that is appropriate for all your needs. It is also important to have either the square footage of the room or a floor plan that you can fax them so that they can give you an accurate price estimate.
Another consideration is whether you are in a leased space or own your own space. If you are in a leased facility, try to find flooring systems that can be removed and taken with you, should you decide to move the business. Manufacturers will give you options for floors that can be moved, and if they can’t, look somewhere else. There’s nothing worse than leaving a sizable investment behind for the next tenant to tear out, or feeling stuck in a space because you’ve invested so much in a permanent flooring system.
If you are trying to decide between two dissimilar products, a life-cycle cost study can also be done. In this process you amortize the cost per year over the product’s usable life and factor in the yearly maintenance costs. Through this process, you may find that one product is less expensive per year over its life, but has a higher initial cost. Then it is up to what your budget constraints are as to whether it makes sense to make the larger or smaller initial investment.
Once you have talked to manufacturers and seen the available options, it’s time to whittle it down to one or two companies and look at their performance.
Look at warranties.
Make sure that the company has a track record of distributing these products, or that the manufacturer has a good history of manufacturing the product for at least as long as the warranty period. It’s hard to verify that a product is as good as its warranty if the warranty is 10 years and the company has only been in business for three.
Ask for references (not just the ones that they sold last month).
Ask for references that have had their product installed for a few years. Then call these references. Manufacturers may only give you their very favorite customers as references. True, but you will have a better idea of what to expect during shipment, installation and, after a few years, use.
Ask the right questions.
Did the product arrive to the reference in a timely fashion? Did the installation occur smoothly? Were the installers courteous and respectful of your needs? Did the product do all that the manufacturer said it would? Has the product worn as well as you would expect it to?
Talk to your friends in the industry.
They will likely be your best sources of information as to which surfaces worked best where, which companies were easiest to deal with, and perhaps even what pricing is reasonable. If you can find someone that you trust who has already been through the experience of buying a floor for a similar area that will give you a great head start.
In the final analysis, it really doesn’t require a scientist to figure out which flooring system is right for your facility. It has to do with the amount of work you want to put into researching available alternatives. Often, this doesn’t require a lot of effort but some diligence on your part. After all, the investment that you make in sports floors will be one you hope to live with for a long while and will keep your members performing at their best.
Steve Chase is the General Manager of Exerflex. He can be contacted at 800.428.5306, or by email at exerflex@exerflex.com.
