Since 1891 - The Oldest Name in Sports Flooring
Historically gym flooring has been wood. Not just any wood, but hard maple or sugar maple, species: Acer saccharum. This wood has a Janka hardness of almost 1400 making one of the hardest, most dent resistant woods available.
Communities across the country see the high school gymnasium as the place where most sporting events happen. It is also a place to vote, or gather for graduation. In short it is the community’s social hub, so its important to choose the right flooring for this space.
Wood flooring systems for gymnasiums provide designers with an almost unlimited number of options to customize the floor and meet the exact needs of the customer. Wood floors today always include an under structure. Because of this, dozens of performance metrics can be tuned for the specific use and specific users. For instance: The floor’s resiliency can be adjusted for 180 pound collegiate athletes or 65 pound grade schoolers. Doing this provides a floor that is both safer and more enjoyable to play on. In addition, the floor can be made to handle roll-out bleachers on the perimeter, and still be optimized in the play area.
This under structure inherent with wood floors also means that wood floors can include options like volleyball post anchors, power plugs and other enhancements.
Talk to your planner about wood floors for your gym. Then have them contact us for information on how Horner Sports Flooring can make sure that your new gym flooring meets all your requirements and expectations.
There a number of synthetic floor systems used in gymnasiums, but the most common one is poured polyurethane. These systems are a more budget friendly system and in some cases provide a superior surface. For instance, polyurethane floors are great for Pickleball, as shown above. Another great use for polyurethane systems is badminton and tennis courts.
A popular design, known as a hybrid, uses both wood and rubber or polyurethane in the same space to derive the benefits of both. Here is a space that uses Horner’s Olymp-X flooting for the tack and maple for the basketball courts.
CushionCourt polyurethane sports flooring from Horner Sports Flooring is a low intial/low recurring cost floor. This flooring is great for large areas where you need to provide a safe, resilient floor surface on a tight budget. In addition, CushionCourt can be paired with a number of Horner Sports Flooring’s wood systems, providing a hybrid solution.
When considering what type of hardwood, maple flooring to use in a new or renovated gymnasium, the athletes playing on the floor are the primary consideration. All other considerations come after safety, from professional athlete to 1st grade gym class.
To ensure a safe sports floor, you should consider a floor that:
A PUR certified floor is a safe sports floor.
After safety, you will want to consider the economical factors of your new floor.
Demanding a Horner Sports Floor will cover all these considerations and more. Horner Sports Flooring is a founding member of the MFMA and was established in 1891 – the same year basketball was invented. .
Horner Sports Flooring has a long history in hardwood flooring, but we also have a product line of synthetic systems. All of our systems are specialized for virtually every sports activity and engineered for the very best in athlete safety, athletic performance, structural integrity, trouble-free maintenance, and long-lasting appeal.
There are some applications where wood flooring is not recommended, weight training rooms for instance. We encourage those looking into athletic, hardwood flooring to evaluate all the uses that their flooring will be experiencing:
Now determine if a wood or synthetic floor is best suited to your application.
Hardwood flooring has the aesthetics and performance that is associated with traditional court competition. The downside to purchasing hardwood flooring is the cost and maintenance. Plus, there are some applications that wood is just not suited for. While hardwood flooring is ideal for the athletes playing on it, a multiple use gymnasium or multi-purpose room may warrant consideration of synthetic flooring. The most common example of this is a field house that uses wood sports flooring for the courts and a synthetic surface for the track that surrounds the courts. Known as a “Combi” floor, Horner has several proven wood-synthetic floor pairings.
We hope the above discussion has helped you better plan your meeting with your flooring professional. While the above represents some of the most important considerations you should make, there are a few more:
It may seem daunting trying to decide on a new floor for your new or renovated gymnasium, but there are always friendly people here at Horner Sports Flooring to assist you, regardless of your current level of flooring knowledge.
Give us a call if you have questions.
We take the safety and health of our little ones very seriously. Growing bodies need special protection so we have listed below 3 of our most recommended systems for young athletes. They provide a wide array of costs, but each is the highest quality in its class. Recognizing the wide array of environments secondary schools might provide, these systems also provide a spectrum of climate suitability.
The following factors should be considered when choosing a new or replacement floor:
CushionCourt is a very popular floor for secondary schools. Used in gyms, common areas and cafeterias, the poured, seemless surface is tough and waterproof.
Contact us and we’ll set up a meeting with one of our flooring professionals who can help you better understand all your options for floors for secondary schools. They will also evaluate your unique situation to ensure the choice of flooring is the best possible one.
The links below will provide all the information you will need to properly spec a Horner Sports Floor for your project. In addition our sales staff is always available to assist with your specifications.
When you use Horner’s flooring specifications, you ensure that your project specifications include a high quality sports floor. Specify a floor from a brand your clients know and respect. Specify a Horner Sports Floor.