Hiring a Professional Floor Care Company Makes Your Job Less Stressful – Here’s Why
Whether you’re the athletic director, facilities manager or principal, keeping the school’s gym floors in good shape is important to your job, even if it’s not something you think about often.
For one thing, the gym is your school’s showpiece. It is the only part of the building many people from the community ever see, whether they attend every home game or just show up every few years to vote. Beyond just aesthetics, though, proper floor care is a safety and performance issue.
By our own (totally non-scientific) estimates, about half of Indiana schools do recoating work in-house, relying on custodial staff. We’re not knocking the DIY approach, particularly if you have the time and expertise to do it, but there are perks to hiring a pro you might not have considered.
1. Eliminating costly mistakes
Your custodians are hardworking and talented, no doubt. Otherwise they probably wouldn’t have been hired. But they’re not hardwood floor care experts, and they weren’t hired to be. You probably wouldn’t hire a house cleaner to recoat or refinish your hardwoods at home.
One of the most common mistakes custodians make is applying too much coating, which can lead to pooling. Or the coating is applied unevenly, so the floor looks dull in some spots and shiny in others. Both affect aesthetics, of course, but they’re also not ideal for performance and safety.
In the worst case scenarios, the floors have to be completely redone, which eats up a considerable (and unplanned) amount of your budget and extends the time your gym is out of operation.
2. Extending the life of your floors
Professional floor care experts know how to protect the game lines and the hardwoods when they recoat. This is crucial because game lines are expensive to redo and hardwoods and really, really expensive to replace. Floor care experts also know how to apply the coating to prevent wear and tear, which can extend the amount of time between full refinishings — saving significant money in the long term.
3. Improving safety and performance
As you’re probably well aware, hardwoods with a worn-out finish become slippery. This makes playing more difficult, but it’s also a serious safety issue that can lead to injuries. If your students are starting to slide all over the place, it’s past time to recoat.
Safety and performance are also impacted by the quality of coating product that’s used, and pros have access to the best. For instance we can put a premium coating, Bona, used by the vast majority of NBA and NCAA teams.
4. Freeing up custodian time
The time your custodians spend recoating every year distracts from their primary tasks, meaning some projects don’t get the attention they need. Particularly in the summer months, when major cleaning projects need to be completed before students return, your crew is busy enough without the added task of learning how to properly recoat.
5. Reducing scheduling hassles
A pro can work around your schedule, getting the job done when it will have the least impact on your facility and planned activities. Floor care experts can get the work done much faster than custodians, so your gym will have the minimum amount of downtime possible. We will handle annual scheduling with your assistant or maintenance team, taking that task off your plate.
6. Streamlining all sports maintenance
Professional flooring companies can offer advice on the maintenance, upkeep and cleaning of your entire athletic facility, not just the gym. They can offer tips for taking care of your facilities and equipment, and they can educate you on how to know when it’s time for a complete refinish.
Most pros — ourselves included — offer a wide range of products and services. We offer recoating, refinishing and complete hardwood replacement, but we’re also experts in other types of flooring like the resinous/epoxy materials in weight or locker rooms. While we’re in the building doing flooring, we can handle any repairs you might need to ceilings and walls, too.
If you’re interested in a quote or more information about how we can help streamline your athletic facility maintenance and cleaning, please fill out this contact form and we’ll give you a shout.
