The Challenge:
After just five short years, Millersville University was experiencing a floor failure in their 22,000 sq ft fitness center at the Student Memorial Center. The large multi-purpose area is used for sporting events, fairs, assemblies, and other events that also require the use of tables and chairs. The linoleum floor that was installed five years earlier was not only breaking down at the seams, it was also becoming a safety and tripping hazard for athletes due to warping and seam separation. We talked to Sara Burcin, SMC Fitness Center Manager, about her experience and the struggles they faced with the failure of the floor “The problems were mostly with the steel plates beneath the linoleum. We found that rolling big carts, stages, and chairs and tables over it would warp the floor and it never bounced back. It was in pretty poor shape by that time and it was only five years old. It didn’t hold up at all. It was becoming dangerous because we would have basketball tournaments and the athletes were tripping on these bumps in different places on the court. And over time, it just looked terrible. So it really needed to be replaced. It was just a disaster, just a very, very poor choice of a product.”
The Solution:
Millersville University turned to their local Robbins dealer, Abacus Sports Installations, for advice on a replacement floor. Abacus recommended a seamless Pulastic SP140 padded polyurethane point-elastic system for its puncture resistance and strong physical properties in the “Spike Proof” resin.
“We worked through Abacus directly. They worked well with us, answered all our questions, took their time. They seem to be pretty well versed on sports floors. We went to look at several Pulastic floors around Lancaster County and found they seem to hold up really well over a long period of time, which is exactly what we needed. We went to some elementary schools that had a Pulastic floor for 20 plus years. They were using it for gym class and lunch and all kinds of things. So we were able to see the floor had been there a long time and had been used in a very similar to the way we use ours. We also looked at a 2nd manufacturers products as well. You also have other companies that want to come in and put a floor down for you for much cheaper.”
The Results:
After facing a challenging demo to remove the existing heavy steel plates that were adhered together, and the linoleum that was in turn adhered to the steel plates, Abacus completed the installation of a new Pulastic SP140 floor in June 2016, just in time for the fall education semester. Not only was Millersville University extremely happy with the clean look and feel of the new floor, student feedback has also been very positive. The gamelines on the floor create three basketball courts, three volleyball courts, and nine badminton areas which are all heavily used by students. The area is also used routinely for assemblies and other events. One of the first events included new student orientation for incoming students in the fall of 2016 (see pictures below).
“We did our research and were pretty adamant about what we needed. Abacus was also good in educating us about the difference in products and advocating that they were not the same. We just weren’t willing to risk another bad experience. We did it once; we weren’t doing it again.”
About Pulastic Sports Flooring
Pulastic Sports Flooring by Robbins is a seamless floor system that provides superior safety and comfort for athletes of all ages. It is a durable and stable floor system with lasting beauty and a multitude of color options for gamelines and school logos. Pulastic can be used for almost any athletic sport including; volleyball, basketball, color guard, football, baseball, wrestling meets, or cheerleading. It is also perfect for multi-function facilities, auditoriums, or cafeterias, and provides superior strength under the everyday use of tables, chairs and bleachers.
The seamless quality of Pulastic is easy to clean and provides a hygienic solution for facilities with a high volume of users and activity. Floor system failures are often found in the seams. Pulastic is an alternative solution to tile or vinyl flooring with seams. Pulastic will last for many decades and can be given a “facelift” which recoats and restores without replacing the entire floor, all the while maintaining the physical properties of the floor performance including; shock absorption, seamless uniformity, and optimal friction.
Robbins Sports Surfaces is the leader in developing sport floors that protect the safety and performance of athletes. Whether it is a hardwood floor system or seamless synthetic like Pulastic, users can be assured they will receive the highest level of sports floor safety and comfort found on the market.
To hear from other Pulastic users, watch this short video:
floor. The SpringAire system offered a unique combination of high load bearing capacity (for bleachers or forklifts), excellent acoustical properties (for sound absorption), and dimensional stability (for athlete protection) in a gym floor. Years of engineering and fine tuning sport floors had led to new developments in the construction of the subfloor. Not only was the floor designed for optimal game play, but it was also constructed with safety of the athlete in mind. UNC understood this technology and wanted only the best for their student athletes.
final decision to move forward with construction of the new floor. In June 2010, over 8,000 sq ft of the newly designed SpringAire floor system was installed in the men’s practice facility.
Foster Specialty Floors. The facility was recently renovated to include over 30,000 sq ft of various Robbins flooring specially customized by Foster for each area and application. The first floor of the facility is the health and fitness center equipped with an aerobics & dance floor, a walking track, a free weight area, and cardio equipment. This floor features almost 23,000 sq ft of custom Strata Sport, Galaxy Classic, Sportwood UltraStar, and Continuous Strip XL pre-finished Maple. The second floor houses the exam rooms and rehab center and features almost 6,000 sq ft of Strata Sport and Strata Commercial. In addition, the Wallace Wing was also renovated and now includes over 2,000 sq ft of Galaxy XTreme and Strata Sport on biometric plates in the Coach K Human Performance Lab.
our aesthetic concerns for the facility but also spent a great deal of time custom designing flooring systems that would address different dynamic performance characterizes, our unique friction requirements, as well as the embedding of biometric plates with in the flooring systems. His ultimate design was a perfect blend of art and science and all of the groups utilizing the building have been very positive and enthusiastic in regard to how their specifically designed sports flooring suits their unique needs. Throughout the installation of the project, Foster Specialty Floor’s tenacious attention to detail and concern for the end user’s finished product was evident on a weekly basis. The project’s extremely tight schedule was met in spite of construction complications. In the end, the flooring systems designed and installed by Foster Specialty Floors at Duke Medicine are truly One of one“.
