Wood Sports Floors:
Minimizing Damaging Effects

Answers:

1. The characteristics of maple flooring that make it desireable for use in sports flooring are that it is naturally beautiful, easy to maintain, shock absorbing, and durable. Based on a 38 year life span, the cost of maple flooring is 42 percent lower than PVC floors and 40 percent lower than poured urethane floors.

2. Third Grade hard maple offers the same long wear as higher grade maple, but is a medium-cost material characterized by wider variations in color and texture caused by wider variations of grains and growth marks. It is typically not used on sports floors of colleges and professional sports because variations in lower grades show up strikingly through television cameras. Third Grade maple is used for primary and secondary school projects because of its lower cost and there is no objection to its varied appearance.

3. The most desirable maple is produced from trees grown north of the 35th parallel where shorter growing seasons and longer winters produce maple with closer, more uniform grain, consistent color and fewer imperfections.

4. Maple flooring should be delivered to the building site at least 72 hours prior to installation and stored indoors. The storing conditions should be temperatures between 55 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity between 30 and 50 percent. Wood flooring should not be delivered to the jobsite until plastering and painting are completed and dry and concrete is cured because moisture evaporates from damp materials and will be absorbed by the flooring.
   
   
5. Cupping and crowning both result from moisture, but on different surfaces. Cupping of wood floorboards occurs when the bottom of the flooring is wet. The boards cup because the top surface of the board dries faster than the bottom. When the moisture is eliminated, the boards will usually repair themselves over time. Crowning is the opposite of cupping and can be caused by moisture on the floor's upper surface. A more common cause, however, is the contraction of a previously cupped floor, which was sanded before the floor has had a chance to dry thoroughly.