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Flooring Professionals To The Leisure Industry
Courtship Flooring is a commercial sports flooring contractor working in Devon and across the UK. We cover the South West intensively, with much of the work involving buildings where moisture is the defining technical issue.
Nearly four decades of specialist work sits behind every project: installation, refurbishment, sanding and sealing, court marking, slip testing and planned maintenance, all delivered in-house. Our clients are institutions and operators rather than households, and private homes are handled by Ryan’s Restorations.
Overnight/Weekend Installations
Professional Cleaning Demonstrations
Squash Court Maintenance
Recommended Cleaning Products
Professional Pendulum Slip Testing
Deep Clean & Reseal Service
Where a slab lacks effective damp protection, vapour rises continuously into whatever is laid over it. Timber cups and lifts; adhesives release; synthetic surfaces blister. It is the single commonest cause of premature floor failure we encounter.
Liquid-applied and membrane barrier systems solve it properly, but only where the readings justify the cost. We measure first, specify accordingly, and provide the readings in writing so the decision is evidenced rather than assumed.
Suspended timber floors rely on airflow beneath them. Blocked or insufficient ventilation traps moisture in the void, and the floor above deteriorates from below while looking perfectly sound from above.
We check void ventilation as part of survey where the construction allows, and advise on clearing or improving it. Restoring a floor without addressing the ventilation that damaged it simply resets the clock.
The early signs are subtle: boards cupping very slightly at the edges, a finish that will not hold in one area, or a faint musty smell in a closed hall. By the time boards are visibly lifting, the repair has become substantial.
An annual inspection with moisture readings catches it while a localised repair is still sufficient, which is a fraction of the cost of replacing a section of floor.
The main sports hall at Liskeard Leisure Centre had taken years of public sessions, club blocks and league nights. We delivered a complete programme of sanding, re-lining and resealing, returning the hall to service looking like a new installation.
It is a fair illustration of how we handle leisure work: one tight programme, agreed dates, and a centre back in action on schedule.
~ 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
The question we are asked most is when the floor can be used again, and the honest answer is that it depends on the system, which is why we put it in writing rather than giving a rule of thumb.
As a general guide, light foot traffic is possible around twenty four hours after the final coat. Full use, with equipment wheeled back and posts refitted, is usually seventy two hours. Some systems are faster and some are slower, and cold or humid conditions extend both.
Walking on a floor too early is the single most common cause of a job needing touching up, and it is entirely avoidable. Footprints in a curing seal do not polish out. Nor do the marks left by equipment put back a day early.
So we agree access arrangements before we start, we sign the room, and where necessary we arrange for it to be locked. It is not us being difficult. It is the difference between a floor that hands over properly and one that needs us back.
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.
Sports floors are full of holes, and how they are dealt with says a good deal about the quality of a job.
Badminton and volleyball posts sit in floor sockets, and those sockets have to finish flush with the surface and stay watertight. During a refinish we lift the covers, clean out years of accumulated debris and dust, protect the sockets from sealer, and reset them to the new floor level. Sanding around a socket cover and sealing over it is the shortcut, and it leaves a raised ring that catches feet and machinery.
Basketball post fixings, wall bar mountings and floor boxes for power get the same treatment. Where a fitting has been removed at some point and the hole filled badly, we make it good properly with matching timber rather than filler.
Inspection covers, expansion joints and threshold trims all need setting to the finished level too. It is detail work and it is largely invisible when done well, which is rather the point.
Devon brings us a broad spread of work, from leisure centre sports halls and secondary school facilities through to university sport and a very large number of community buildings.
Leisure centre halls tend to be the busiest floors in the county, and the priority for an operator is always keeping the building trading. Most of that work happens overnight or across an agreed quiet period, sealed at the end of a shift so the floor is walkable by opening time.
School and academy halls follow, with the fixed term dates that govern every school job. Summer slots book up early, and schools that ring in June are usually looking at the following year.
The third group is the rural stock: village halls, church halls and club buildings, of which the county has an enormous number. Those old timber floors are frequently in far better condition than they appear, and restoring rather than replacing them is both cheaper and better.
We plan work in the far south west as continuous blocks and bring everything with us, so the programme is thought through in advance rather than improvised on site.
Devon enquiries have a fairly distinct character, shaped by the mix of coastal leisure facilities, rural schools and a very large number of community buildings.
Moisture comes up more here than in most regions. Older buildings, solid floors and limited damp proofing mean we take readings as a genuine diagnostic step rather than a formality. Sealing over a floor that is still giving off moisture guarantees the finish will fail, and it is one of the few mistakes in this trade that cannot be recovered cheaply.
The second recurring issue is halls that are simply overdue. A village hall or school hall that has gone twenty years without a refinish usually still has plenty of board depth left, and the transformation is dramatic, but the staining in the traffic lanes may not fully lift.
The third is leisure centre floors that need catching on a cycle rather than a rescue. A screen and recoat every two to three years keeps those off the replacement list entirely.
The most common mistake in court relining is tracing what is already on the floor. It repeats old errors and it keeps sports on the hall that nobody plays any more.
We set out from current governing body dimensions using laser and tape, not from the existing paint. Courts that have been remarked by copying the previous set drift over the years, and a surprising number of halls turn out to have netball thirds that are not equal or three point arcs that are not true. If your courts have always felt slightly wrong, that is usually why.
Every dimension is checked before a drop of paint goes down, and the two ends of a court are compared so the layout is symmetrical rather than merely plausible.
On timber the lines go on between coats of seal, which puts the paint under the final lacquer where trainers, trolleys and scrubber driers cannot reach it. That single detail is the difference between line marking that lasts the life of the finish and line marking that starts lifting within a season.
Three things drive the figure: hall size, the amount of preparation the existing surface needs, and whether the sub-floor requires attention. All three are established at survey, after which the quotation is fixed. We do not price from a distance and then revise once work starts.
We cover the entire area and beyond. Our projects have taken us across the UK and internationally, and the planning method is the same wherever the building happens to be.
A well-installed and properly maintained timber floor can serve for decades because it can be renewed repeatedly. Synthetic surfaces typically run fifteen to twenty years before replacement.
Yes, and we do regularly. If a floor needs nothing more than a proper clean, that is what we will say. It costs us a job and earns us the next five.
Yes, and it is the norm. Each sport is marked to its governing body specification in a distinct colour, with the layout planned so the primary court reads instantly. Crests and badges can be sealed in at centre court.
Yes, in advance and specific to the job rather than a generic template. We also supply COSHH sheets for every product, insurance certificates and DBS details for staff on school sites.
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.
Sealed vacuum extraction on all machines including edge equipment, screening of the working area, and agreement with your site team on isolating doors and air handling routes.
A typical hall takes one to two weeks from first machine to final coat, depending on size, how much board repair is needed and how many coats the seal requires. You get a day by day programme before we start.
It depends on board thickness and how much has already been removed. A solid strip floor might take six to eight full sands across its life. We measure the remaining wear layer at survey.
Yes. Logos are painted from your own artwork between coats of seal so they wear with the floor rather than scuffing off. It costs least while the floor is already open for a refinish.
Book a free survey of your floor in Devon 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.