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Flooring Professionals To The Leisure Industry
Courtship Flooring is a commercial sports flooring contractor working in Cumbria and across the UK. Work here is planned as a complete residency rather than a call-out, with everything agreed and priced before we travel.
A family business established in 1987, working exclusively on commercial indoor sports and timber floors. We survey, install, restore, mark, test and maintain, keeping every stage in our own hands so one warranty covers the whole system. Domestic work is handled separately by Ryan’s Restorations.
Overnight/Weekend Installations
Professional Cleaning Demonstrations
Squash Court Maintenance
Recommended Cleaning Products
Professional Pendulum Slip Testing
Deep Clean & Reseal Service
Remote facilities are frequently told a job is not worth a contractor’s time, or quoted a premium that reflects inconvenience rather than cost. We take a different view: distance changes our logistics, not the price of the work.
Projects are quoted as complete programmes with mobilisation included and stated up front. There are no additional travel charges appearing later and no partial jobs left waiting on a return visit.
Where several facilities in an area need attention, booking together spreads the mobilisation across all of them and reduces the cost for each. It is how a good deal of our work in remote areas is arranged in practice.
We are happy to coordinate that between unconnected organisations and quote each separately, so nobody is tied to anybody else’s decision. It is simply a more sensible use of everyone’s budget.
Where users arrive in walking boots and wet weather is routine, the first few metres inside the door take more punishment than the rest of the hall combined, and that is precisely where slip incidents occur.
We specify finishes that cope, advise properly on matting and barrier zones, and concentrate slip testing on entrance areas rather than only the playing surface. It is the cheapest safety improvement available in most buildings.
At Medina Leisure Centre we refurbished the main sports hall floor completely: sanding, repairs, resealing and a full set of new markings, with the logistics planned down to the last detail so the centre lost as little bookable time as possible.
The after photographs show a hall transformed, and the programme finished on the date agreed at the outset.
~ 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
Once the final coat is down, the floor belongs to the chemistry for a while, and the handover date we give you includes that. Two pack polyurethane seals cure in stages. Light foot traffic is usually possible after 24 hours, and equipment, posts and trolleys wait for 72 hours or longer.
Cold rooms slow everything. A Cumbrian hall that has been unheated over a holiday can take a day longer than the same floor in a warm building, so we ask for the heating to run at a normal level for the whole of the job and the days after it.
We sign the doors, agree who holds the key and put the release times in writing before we leave site. Footprints in a soft seal do not buff out, and the small discipline of keeping people off the floor is what separates a clean handover from a return visit.
A good number of halls built in the middle of the last century have Granwood underfoot: small composite blocks made from wood flour and cement, laid in a bitumen bed and set in a brick pattern. It is hard, it is durable and it is not timber, so it cannot be sanded back the way boards can.
The correct restoration is careful preparation followed by a modified epoxy coating system, with markings applied as part of the same programme. A sound Granwood floor comes back looking new for a fraction of what lifting it would cost.
The bitumen bed deserves respect. Beds laid before the mid 1980s can contain asbestos, so we treat every one as suspect until a test says otherwise, and we plan the work so nothing disturbs it. In Cumbria’s older school stock that caution is routine for us rather than an afterthought.
Institutional clients need a file, and we supply one without being chased. Before the first machine is unloaded you receive risk assessments and method statements written for your building, not a generic template with the name changed.
COSHH data sheets cover every seal, filler and cleaning product we bring, so your estates team knows what is in the room and how it is stored. Our public and employer’s liability insurance certificates come with the quotation, and we can add named sites where a landlord or trust asks for it.
On school sites every member of the crew holds an enhanced DBS check, and we are used to signing in, wearing identification and working within safeguarding arrangements while a summer school runs elsewhere in the building. Rural Cumbrian schools with a single caretaker tend to value knowing exactly who is on site and when.
A refinished floor stays that way if the daily routine is right, and the routine is short. Dry mop each day to lift grit before trainers grind it into the seal. Damp mop with a neutral cleaner made for sealed sports timber, diluted as the label says and no stronger.
Polish and wax are the enemy. They build a film that dulls the floor, lowers grip and eventually has to be stripped with chemicals at real cost. Most of the slippery halls we are called to have been polished with the best of intentions.
Spills want wiping up the same day, and wet weather gear coming in from the fells wants leaving at the door. We hand over a single page of guidance at the end of every job and we are glad to walk your cleaning staff through it while we are still there.
Cumbria work comes to us from school sports halls, leisure centres and a very large number of village and community buildings, and the programming matters as much as the specification.
Because journeys within the county take longer than the map suggests, we plan work here in continuous blocks and bring everything we need with us rather than expecting to collect materials locally. That makes these projects more thoroughly planned than a job close to base, not less.
The building stock includes a lot of older halls with timber floors laid decades ago, and the recurring theme is that they are in better condition than people assume. Under the polish and the chair scoring there is usually plenty of board depth left, and restoration transforms them for a modest sum.
Moisture deserves a particular mention here. Older buildings, solid floors and limited damp proofing mean we take readings as a matter of course rather than as a formality, because sealing over a floor that is still giving off moisture guarantees the finish will fail.
Where several facilities are considering work, it is worth sequencing them together.
Cumbrian enquiries usually resemble one of two projects, depending on the building.
For school halls, De Wint School is the closest comparison. A hall in constant curriculum use that had gone well past its proper refinish cycle, sanded back to bare timber, damaged boards replaced, resealed and remarked from measured dimensions with several redundant sports removed while the floor was open.
For community buildings, St Katherine Hall is the better parallel. That was an old timber floor carrying badminton one evening and a community event the next, buried under decades of polish and scored by chairs and tables. The polish had to be removed chemically before sanding, and underneath was a floor with plenty of depth left. It is now set for another few decades of everything it is asked to do.
Both projects illustrate the point we make about remote work: it is planned more thoroughly, not less, because everything has to be resolved before we set off.
Yes, and it is routine work during a refinish. We cut out split, gouged or water damaged boards and let in matching timber of the same species and width, laid with the grain running the same way. Once the floor is sanded and sealed the repair is very hard to find.
A typical single court school hall takes between one and two weeks from the first machine to the last coat, with cure time on top. Larger halls and those needing repairs take longer. You receive a day by day programme with the quotation so you can plan around it.
Heating dries the air in the hall, the boards give up moisture and shrink slightly. The gaps close again in spring as humidity rises. It is seasonal movement, not a defect, and keeping the building at a steadier temperature and humidity through the year reduces it.
Yes. We paint the crest from your own artwork between coats of seal so it sits under the final lacquer and wears at the same rate as the floor. Doing it during a refinish costs far less than a separate visit later.
We do, regularly. Leisure centres and busy community halls often cannot close for a fortnight, so we sand and seal in blocks outside opening hours and time the final coat so the floor is walkable by the next session. It costs a little more in labour and saves a great deal in lost hire income.
Yes. We quote by element, so a committee or bursar can take the sanding and sealing this year and the relining or stage the next. Our survey report ranks each item by urgency so you know what can safely wait.
Speak to us in the winter term. Summer weeks fill quickly because every school wants the same six weeks, and by June we are usually placing people into the following year. Half terms and Easter suit shorter jobs such as a screen and recoat.
For most halls, yes. A sprung timber system gives the shock absorption and ball response that ball sports need, and it can be refinished many times over several decades. Where the timetable is weighted to fitness classes or the building is prone to damp, a point elastic vinyl system may suit better, and we will say so.
Book a free survey of your sports floor anywhere in Cumbria. We measure, take moisture readings and tell you plainly what the floor needs, what it costs and when it can be done. Call 01823 674562 or send us a message.