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Flooring Professionals To The Leisure Industry
Courtship Flooring is a commercial sports flooring contractor working in Berkshire and across the UK. We have completed a number of specialist restorations in the county, including composite block floors that most contractors decline.
This is all we do, and we have been doing it since 1987. Installation, restoration, sanding, sealing, line marking, slip testing and maintenance for commercial and institutional buildings, delivered without subcontractors. Residential projects go to our sister company, Ryan’s Restorations.
Overnight/Weekend Installations
Professional Cleaning Demonstrations
Squash Court Maintenance
Recommended Cleaning Products
Professional Pendulum Slip Testing
Deep Clean & Reseal Service
Granwood appears as small rectangular blocks laid in a brick-like pattern and feels noticeably harder underfoot than boards. It was fitted extensively between the 1950s and 1980s and remains in service in a great many halls.
Critically, it holds almost no surface material. Sanding one as you would sand timber destroys it permanently, which is why identifying the floor correctly before quoting is not a formality. Send a photograph and we will confirm it free of charge.
The correct treatment for a sound composite block floor is careful preparation followed by a modified epoxy coating system. It restores an even, consistent surface with the colour returned to it, and provides a durable finish suited to heavy multi-sport use.
New markings are applied as part of the same programme. The result is frequently assumed to be a new floor, at a fraction of what replacement would have cost and without the disruption.
Not every composite floor is recoverable. Where blocks have lifted extensively, where moisture has broken down the bond across large areas, or where previous sanding has already removed the working surface, coating over it simply postpones the problem.
We will say so plainly and price the replacement honestly rather than taking payment for a treatment that will fail. That judgement is the main value of having someone who works with these floors regularly.
Our installation at Hornbury Academy shows the full process from bare sub-floor through to a finished, fully line-marked hall, delivered to a fixed programme while the school carried on around us.
For anyone weighing a new floor against another patch-up, it is a useful illustration of what the complete journey involves and what it produces.
~ Matthew Evans
An outstanding company to deal with and they couldn’t have been better to work with. St George’s Ascot now has a stunning new sports hall floor and we are delighted. From quote, support, delivery and after sales, the Team has been brilliant. Thank you. 
~ James Anderson
Underfloor heating and timber sports floors can work together, but the combination has to be designed rather than assumed, and we see the consequences when it is not.
Timber moves with moisture content, and heating from below drives moisture out of the boards. If the system is run too hot, or brought up too quickly at the start of a season, boards shrink, gaps open and in extreme cases the floor cups or splits. None of that is repairable by refinishing.
The requirements are straightforward. Surface temperature has to be limited and controlled, the system needs commissioning and gradual warming rather than being switched on in October at full output, and the timber needs to be specified as suitable for use over heating.
Where we are installing over an existing system we will ask for the commissioning records and the operating parameters. Where we are refinishing a floor that has suffered from a badly run system, we will tell you that the finish is the symptom rather than the problem.
School work is governed by a date that does not move, and everything else is arranged around it.
A full sand and seal of a typical school hall takes one to two weeks, which fits comfortably into a summer holiday. Smaller halls and screen and recoat work fit into a half term. Easter and Christmas suit shorter jobs, though the drying conditions in midwinter need allowing for rather than ignoring.
Summer slots go early. Schools that ring in June are usually looking at the following year, and we would far rather have the conversation in January when there is still choice about dates. Trusts planning several halls should be thinking a full year ahead.
What makes these jobs work is preparation rather than long hours. We survey properly so nothing unexpected appears once the finish comes off, we order materials in advance, we staff the job to the programme instead of spreading a team thin, and we build cure times into the schedule rather than treating them as spare. The hall is back for the first day of term because it was planned to be.
Most halls are asked to accommodate five or six sports on one floor, and the difference between a hall that works and one that confuses everybody is hierarchy rather than cleverness.
We start by asking what is actually played, and in what proportion. The sport used most gets the dominant colour and the clearest line. Secondary sports step back. Anything genuinely redundant comes off, which is almost always the single biggest improvement available.
The conflicts are predictable. Netball goal circles land on the basketball key. Badminton tramlines cross both. Five a side markings run through everything. We resolve them by colour weight and by removing clutter, not by adding more variation into an already crowded floor.
Colour choice is made under your own hall lighting rather than on a paint chart, because LED refits have changed how colours read in a great many halls. Two shades that look distinct on paper can merge completely on the floor.
University sports facilities have a particular problem: they are busy year round, so the long summer shutdown that schools rely on does not exist.
Term brings curriculum use, club training and league fixtures. The summer brings conferences, summer schools and external hire, which is often more lucrative than term time use. The window for work is therefore narrow, defined and non negotiable.
The way we handle it is by planning to the window rather than hoping to fit inside it. We survey early, order materials in advance, staff the job properly rather than spreading a team across sites, and build the cure times into the programme rather than treating them as slack.
Campus estates usually hold several floors of different ages: a main sports hall, studios, squash courts and a fitness suite, often built decades apart. A condition survey across all of them, with a phased programme, is generally far more useful than dealing with each as it becomes urgent.
Berkshire gives us a heavy weighting towards independent schools and well funded academy sport, and that shapes the kind of work we are asked to do.
Independent school sports halls, gymnasia and squash courts are a significant part of it. Expectations of finish quality are high, the buildings are usually in good order, and the work is planned well ahead into fixed holiday windows. A good deal of it is preventative rather than remedial, which is exactly how it should be: screen and recoat on a sensible cycle rather than waiting for the seal to fail.
Squash courts feature more here than in many parts of the country, and they are a genuine specialism. A court polished smooth through the middle needs the right matt high grip finish, not a general sports lacquer.
State school and leisure centre work makes up the rest, along with a steady stream of village and church halls whose timber floors are often far better than they look under decades of polish.
We have worked at St George Ascot and at The Bradfield Club, and both were the kind of project where a proper survey changed what was actually needed.
Berkshire enquiries divide fairly neatly, and the pattern says something about how well maintained the building stock here is.
A good proportion are preventative: a facilities manager who knows the floor is coming up for its screen and recoat and wants it booked before it becomes urgent. That is the cheapest way to run a sports floor and we wish more places worked that way.
The remainder are remedial, and the most common is a squash court that has gone slick through the middle. It happens because players return to the same spot after every shot and polish the finish smooth. A matt high grip reseal restores it, and it is a genuine safety issue rather than a comfort one.
The third group is halls where the markings have drifted. Courts remarked by tracing the previous set gradually move, and a hall that has been done three or four times that way can be noticeably out. We set out from measured dimensions, which is often the first time in decades that has happened.
Repainting is usually understood as relining only, but on synthetic floors we can change the appearance of the entire hall, and it is one of the highest impact things a facility can do on a modest budget.
A polyurethane or modified epoxy floor that has gone patchy, faded or simply dated can be recoated in a new base colour, with fresh court markings applied over the new coating. The hall goes from looking worn out to looking refurbished without touching the substrate underneath, and the relining is carried out as part of the same programme rather than as a separate visit.
Colour choice is worth proper thought. Darker bases show dust and scuffing quickly and can make a hall feel smaller. Mid tone greys, blues and greens hide marks, sit well under LED lighting and let the line colours read clearly against them.
Where a school or club wants its identity on the floor, this is the moment. Coloured keys, a contrasting centre circle or a crest at centre court all go down alongside the relining rather than as a separate job later, which is considerably cheaper than coming back for them.
Considerably less than most people expect, because restoration rather than replacement is usually the answer. A full sand and seal typically costs a small fraction of a new floor. The survey is free, the quotation is fixed, and nothing is added later without your agreement.
The full area and the counties around it. Where a facility is some way from us, we bring all machinery and materials at the outset and complete everything within one agreed window.
Machine cleaning with appropriate solutions to lift embedded residue and grime that normal mopping leaves behind, restoring appearance and grip. It starts from four pounds fifty per square metre.
Yes, using the pendulum method to BS 7976-2 with a written report recording values across multiple positions. It either reassures you or gives you documented evidence that the floor needs attention.
We carry the insurance and documentation institutional clients require, work to CDM where applicable, and provide method statements and risk assessments as standard.
Yes. Scheduled deep cleaning, screen and recoat visits, minor repairs, remarking and an annual written condition inspection. It is considerably cheaper than reacting when a floor has already failed.
Dust mop daily to lift grit, damp mop with a neutral cleaner made for sealed sports timber, and never use polish, wax or anything promising shine. We hand over written guidance with every job.
No. We are a commercial contractor working on schools, leisure centres, universities, clubs and public buildings. The machinery, finishes and insurance are different from domestic work.
No. Every job is carried out by our own directly employed team using our own machinery. It is why we can commit to a finish date and why the standard is the same on the last day as the first.
Yes, provided it is set up correctly and picks the water up rather than leaving it standing. We are happy to check your machine settings while we are on site.
Regularly. We tender for frameworks, price on schedules of rates, and provide the full procurement documentation set including insurances, quality procedures and safeguarding arrangements.
Book a free survey of your floor in Berkshire and we will tell you honestly what it needs, what it will cost and how quickly it can happen. Call 01823 674562 or send us a message.