Planning a Wood Gym Floor Renovation Program

Background

This article will examine the materials and labor required to renovate a 10,000-square-foot wood sports floor. To get a rough estimate of your building, scale the results accordingly. Other parameters for this analysis include floor preparation by a wet abrasion process and Trophy H2O finish without a base coat. These parameters require that the floor have a sufficient finish buildup of two or three coats of a Hillyard water-based gym floor finish.

The exact procedure we’re analyzing, specific to Trophy H2O, is found at this link. A complete set of Gym Floor Scrub and Recoat procedures covering other gym floor finishes are found at this link.

Step 1 - Inspect the Floor

Proper preparation is the key to great results. In this first step, personnel will closely examine the floor to remove any gum or tape, review the product label instructions, and identify any issues, like damaged flooring, that must be addressed before proceeding.

Labor Required: This step is highly variable. For this example, we will assign 30 minutes to this task.

Step 2 - Clean and Abrade the Floor

In this step, we use Hillyard Pre-Game Tacking Solution, a cleaning machine, and 3M Surface Preparation Pads (SPP) to thoroughly clean and abrade the old floor finish. Abrading is making small, shallow cuts in the floor finish surface. These shallow cuts improve the adhesion of the new finish we will add to the floor.

Hillyard Pre-Game is a water-based formulation designed for floor preparation. Pre-Game helps remove dust, dirt, and other contaminants. Pre-Game leaves no greasy residue, ensuring a clean surface for better bonding of future coatings.

Use an automatic scrubber or a combination of an orbital floor machine and a wet-dry vacuum to abrade the floor. The automatic scrubber offers a substantial productivity gain over the floor machine. We will use SPPs at a rate of 250 square feet per side. For this process, we recommend cleaning the floor at a slower speed compared to regular scrubbing. Our productivity rates during this step are 33% of the standard ISSA scrubbing rate.

Materials Used, Wet Abrasion Method

• Area cleaned: 10,000 square feet
• Cleaning Solution Usage Rate: 1.3 Gallons per 1,000 square feet
• Total Cleaning Solution Used: 1.3 Gallons x 10 = 13 Gallons
• Hillyard Pre-Game Dilution Ratio: 1:4 (20% solution)
• Pre-Game Solution Used: 13 Gallons x 20% = 2.7 Gallons

Surface Preparation Pads: 250 square feet per side, 500 square feet per pad. For 10,000 square feet, we use 20 pads.

Labor Required, Wet Abrasion Method

Now that the floor is cleaned and abraded, it's time for the next step.

Step 3 – Tack the Floor

In this step, we will remove as much debris as possible from the floor. Residual debris can lead to defects in the floor finish.

We will use 0.4 gallons of Pre-Game concentrate to make 2.0 gallons of RTU solution. Using a push broom and terry cloth towels, tack the floor with the Pre-Game Solution. Plan on using about 10 pounds of clean terry cloth towels during this process. This process will take about an hour. This process could be done in about 20 minutes using a Hillyard Quick-Pass.

Once the floor is dry, dry-tack the floor with Chix Brand Masslinn Dust Cloths. This process will consume two or three cloths and take about half an hour.

Step 4 - Apply the Trophy H2O Gym Finish

Now that the floor is abraded, clean and dust free, it’s time to apply the gym finish. Hillyard recommends applying Trophy H2O at 500 to 600 square feet per gallon. For this analysis, we will use the middle of that range, 550 square feet per gallon.

There are two methods that Hillyard recommends for applying Trophy H2O, a lightweight T-bar or the Multi-Flo XP. The Multi-Flo XP will save some labor.

Materials Used, Floor Finish Application

• Total Finished Area: 10,000 square feet
• Finish Coverage: 550 square feet per gallon
• Total Trophy H2O Used: 18.2 Gallons

Labor Needed, Floor Finish Application

Once the Trophy H2O has been applied, Turn on the exhaust system one to two hours after applying Trophy H2O. Allow Trophy H2O Gym Finish to cure at least 24 hours before opening up to light traffic and 72 hours before opening up to athletic use. NOTE: Temperature and humidity will affect the drying and curing properties.

Summary

Now that the floor is ready for game play, let's take a look at the scoreboard...

Here are the materials we used for this project.

The labor required to refinish a gym floor will depend on the methods selected. See the table below to estimate the labor required for the various combinations.

Hillyard can help you plan and execute your project.

Hillyard representatives use our Envirologix system to help you make better decisions. Envirologix is a web-based application built from decades of experience and a proprietary database containing information on over one billion square feet of cleaning programs. Your local Hillyard representative can work with you to build an optimized cleaning program to maximize your budget and deliver the results your stakeholders demand.

Use the “I’m Interested” form below, and one of our representatives will contact you to discuss planning your wood floor restoration project.