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Flooring Professionals To The Leisure Industry
Courtship Flooring is a commercial sports flooring contractor working in Cornwall and across the UK. We have delivered full sports hall refurbishments across the county, planned as complete programmes with fixed dates.
Since 1987 we have worked on indoor sports floors the length of the country and internationally. We remain family-run and deliberately specialist, covering installation through to long-term aftercare with our own team and machinery. We take no domestic work; Ryan’s Restorations covers that.
Overnight/Weekend Installations
Professional Cleaning Demonstrations
Squash Court Maintenance
Recommended Cleaning Products
Professional Pendulum Slip Testing
Deep Clean & Reseal Service
The sequence matters as much as the workmanship. Survey and moisture readings first, then dust-controlled sanding back to clean timber, then repairs with matched boards, then fine sanding to an even surface.
Seal follows in the correct number of coats with proper curing between them, markings laid between coats so they sit protected within the finish, and finally a documented handover setting out exactly when the floor takes traffic, equipment and full play.
Distance is a planning problem rather than a quality one. Projects further afield are organised as complete visits: everything surveyed, agreed and priced before we travel, all materials and machinery brought in at the outset.
Nothing is left part-finished awaiting a return trip, and there are no additional mobilisation costs appearing mid-programme. It is how we have worked the length of the country for nearly four decades.
Facilities are frequently surprised by how complete the transformation is. A floor that looked finished, grey through the traffic lanes with markings closer to guesswork than instruction, comes back reading as a new installation.
That is not a trick of photography; it is what removing years of degraded finish and rebuilding it properly actually produces. We are happy to share full before and after documentation from comparable projects so you can judge before committing.
The sports hall floor at Treguib had given years of service and looked it. Our team took it back to clean timber, repaired the wear, then resealed and re-marked the full hall.
The result is a floor that plays and looks like new for a fraction of replacement cost, delivered a long way from our base and still on the date we promised.
~ 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
Cornwall’s buildings sit in some of the dampest air in the country, and a sports floor in a coastal hall has to be specified with that in mind. Moisture reaches timber from the slab below, from leaks above and from the air itself, and each does different damage.
Boards cupping at the edges usually point to moisture from beneath or a spill. A floor lifting in the middle has expanded with nowhere to go. Vinyl blistering or adhesive letting go almost always means vapour rising through a slab with no working membrane.
Where readings show a slab giving off moisture, a liquid applied or sheet damp proof barrier goes down before any new floor. Where a suspended timber floor has a void, we check the airbricks are clear, because a blocked void rots a floor from below while it looks fine on top. Fixing the building comes before finishing the floor.
A hall floor that has gone slick is a safety matter, and the way to settle it is with a number. Pendulum testing to BS 7976-2 gives a Pendulum Test Value, and 36 or above means low slip potential. It is the method insurers and the HSE recognise.
We test at several points across the floor, dry and wet, because the entrance, the centre court and the corner by the store cupboard rarely read the same. The result comes as a certificate you can put on file.
Testing before and after a deep clean shows whether the problem was cleaning residue, which it usually is, or a seal that has worn smooth and needs a recoat. Leisure operators in Cornwall with damp entrances and wet weather traffic tend to book a test each year with the condition inspection, which keeps the file current.
Our guarantee is backed by a company that has been doing this one job since 1987 and still answers the phone under the same family name. That matters more than the wording, because a warranty from a firm that has moved on is no warranty at all.
Because one crew surveys, prepares, sands, seals, marks and tests, one guarantee covers the whole floor. There is no handover between an installer and a finisher for a fault to fall between. A seal that fails, a board that lifts or a line that peels within the period is put right by us.
What falls outside it is damage from polish, wrong cleaning products, standing water, or furniture and equipment dragged across an unprotected floor, and we set that out in writing at handover. For a Cornish hall a long way from base, we would sooner say clearly what is covered than argue about it later.
Most enquiries arrive as a description of a symptom. A few things let us reply with a real steer instead of a holding email.
Photographs first. Two or three of the whole hall and two or three close up of whatever concerns you: the worn lane, the stain, the lifting board. A rough size, or simply the number of badminton courts, gives us the area. The age of the floor and any old invoice for previous work help more than you would think.
Then tell us what the hall is used for and when it could realistically close. Those two facts shape the recommendation as much as the condition. From that we can usually give a budget range and say whether the floor wants a recoat, a full sand or a survey visit, which for Cornwall we plan into a trip with other work nearby.
Cornwall work reaches us mainly from leisure centres, secondary school sports halls and a large number of community and church buildings, and the practical consideration is how the work is programmed.
Because the county is a long way from most suppliers, we plan these jobs as continuous blocks and bring everything with us rather than relying on collecting materials locally. That makes the programme tighter rather than looser, since it all has to be worked out before we set off.
Leisure centre halls are usually the busiest floors in the county and the ones most in need of a sensible maintenance cycle. We completed work at Liskeard Leisure Centre, and that project is a fair example: a heavily used hall, an operator who could not afford a long closure, and a programme built around the centre timetable rather than ours.
School halls follow, with the usual fixed term dates. Village and church halls are the third group and often the most transformed, because those old timber floors usually have plenty of depth left under the polish.
Where several facilities are considering work, sequencing them into one trip is worth doing.
The project we point to most often for Cornwall enquiries is Liskeard Leisure Centre, because it answers the two questions operators here always ask.
The first is whether a contractor travelling to the far south west can actually hold a programme. We plan work in this region as continuous blocks with machinery, abrasives, coatings and spares all brought with us, because nothing can be collected the same afternoon. In practice that makes these projects more tightly planned than a job an hour from base, and the dates more reliable rather than less.
The second is whether the centre can keep trading. At Liskeard the programme was built around the centre timetable rather than ours, with the work sequenced so the noisiest operations fell when the building was quietest, and dust extraction and screening arranged so the rest of the facility stayed usable.
For school halls in the county the closer comparison is De Wint School, where the constraint was the term date rather than booking income.
A squash court wears in one place. Players return to the T after every shot, and over a season that patch is polished smooth while the front and back of the court still look fine. A glossy band in the middle is unpleasant to play on and a real injury risk.
The finish is the whole decision. World Squash guidance calls for a light coloured, matt floor with high slip resistance, and a gloss lacquer plays like ice once dust settles on it. We sand to the right degree of openness, because sanding too fine polishes the timber before any seal goes on, and use a matt high grip system.
Lines are red, 50 millimetres wide, and go on between coats. Because each court is its own room we work through a block one or two at a time, so a Cornish club keeps most of its courts in play.
Yes. Granwood is a composite block in a bitumen bed, and it is coated with a modified epoxy system after careful preparation, never sanded like timber. New markings go on within the same programme, and the result costs far less than lifting and replacing the floor.
Yes. We work up your artwork to scale, show you the layout, and paint it between coats of seal so the final lacquer protects it. It wears evenly with the floor and costs least while the floor is already open.
A screen and recoat lightly abrades the existing seal and adds a fresh coat, taking a few days and costing a fraction of a full sand. A full sand removes everything to bare timber and rebuilds the finish. The first suits an intact seal, the second a worn through one.
A pad, batten or cradle beneath that patch has failed, so the boards no longer spring back with the rest of the floor. It is repaired by lifting the boards locally and replacing the failed parts, not by working on the surface.
Talk to us in the winter term. Summer weeks fill quickly because every school wants the same six, and a call in June usually means the following year. Half terms and Easter suit shorter jobs such as a recoat.
The timber and blocks are not the issue, but bitumen adhesive beds laid before the mid 1980s can contain it. Any bitumen bedded floor is treated as suspect until tested, and the work is planned so the bed is never disturbed.
Yes. Every quotation is itemised, so a committee can take the sanding and sealing this year and the relining or stage next year. The survey report ranks each item by urgency and says what should not be left.
It can, if the system is designed for it. Surface temperature must be limited, heating brought up gradually at the start of the season and the timber specified as suitable. Run too hot or too fast, boards shrink, gaps open and the floor can split.
Book a free survey of your sports floor in Cornwall. We plan the visit into a full programme, take the readings and give you a fixed written price and a date we keep. Call 01823 674562 or send us a message.