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Flooring Professionals To The Leisure Industry
Courtship Flooring is a commercial sports flooring contractor working in Herefordshire and across the UK. We work throughout the county on school halls, village facilities and sports clubs, much of it restoration rather than replacement.
We are specialists rather than generalists, which after nearly forty years means a depth of knowledge on sports and commercial timber floors that a general contractor cannot match. Every stage is completed in-house. We do not quote for domestic work; Ryan’s Restorations handles that side.
Overnight/Weekend Installations
Professional Cleaning Demonstrations
Squash Court Maintenance
Recommended Cleaning Products
Professional Pendulum Slip Testing
Deep Clean & Reseal Service
Most floors presented to us as replacement candidates do not need replacing. Timber is the only sports surface that can be renewed repeatedly, and a full sand and seal costs a fraction of a new installation while taking days rather than weeks.
The honest test is measurable: depth remaining above the tongue, sub-floor stability and moisture readings. Where those are satisfactory, restoration wins on cost, disruption and waste every time.
A poorly matched repair is visible for the life of the floor. Species, grade, grain direction and board width all have to correspond, and the repair has to be levelled precisely into the surrounding surface before sanding.
Because we carry out repairs in-house rather than subcontracting them, we control that matching. Once the whole floor is sanded and sealed, a properly executed repair disappears entirely.
Every timber floor eventually reaches the end. The indicators are specific: insufficient depth above the tongue for another sand, widespread fixing failure, sub-floor movement that cannot be economically corrected, or moisture damage beyond localised repair.
We will tell you when a floor has reached that point, with the measurements to support it. Recommending restoration on a floor that cannot support it would simply be selling you a failure.
The sports hall floor at De Wint School had reached the end of its seal: grey through the middle, markings closer to guesswork than instruction, and a surface that felt slippery however often it was cleaned.
We sanded it back to clean timber, repaired what needed repairing, resealed and re-marked. The hall reopened with a deep, glossy finish that reads as newly installed, delivered inside a planned holiday window.
~ 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
Badminton is unforgiving about dimensions because the service courts are small and an error of a few centimetres changes where a shuttle lands.
A doubles court is 13.4 by 6.1 metres, narrowing to 5.18 metres for singles, with the short service line 1.98 metres from the net. We set out from those numbers rather than from the lines already on your floor, because a great many halls carry badminton courts that were laid slightly out decades ago and have been faithfully copied at every remark since. If your courts have always felt cramped at the back, that is usually why.
In a multi court hall the critical dimension is the separation between courts. Too tight and players from adjacent courts collide chasing wide shots. Where a hall is genuinely too narrow we will say that three courts laid out correctly beats four laid out badly.
Badminton lines are conventionally white or yellow, chosen to read clearly against everything else already on the floor.
Markings are the part of a floor everybody looks at, and the part most often got wrong.
We set out from current governing body dimensions using laser and tape, not by copying what is already on the floor. Courts that have been remarked by tracing 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.
On timber the lines go down between coats of seal so the paint finishes under the final lacquer. That single detail is why our markings last as long as the finish, while lines applied on top of a completed floor start lifting within a season.
We will also ask what is actually played. Most halls carry markings for at least one sport nobody has taught in years, and removing redundant sets does more for clarity than any amount of clever colour choice. Fewer lines, correctly dimensioned, in colours that separate properly under your own lighting.
Not every tired floor needs taking back to bare timber, and knowing the difference saves facilities a great deal of money.
A screen and recoat is a light abrasion of the existing finish followed by a fresh top coat. It restores grip and appearance, it takes a fraction of the time, and it costs a fraction of the price. It works when the seal is worn but still intact across the floor.
A full sand removes everything back to bare timber and rebuilds the finish from scratch. It is the right answer when the lacquer has worn through in the traffic lanes and dirt is sitting in open grain, when there are repairs to make, or when the markings need setting out fresh.
As a rule of thumb, a well maintained hall wants a screen and recoat every two to three years and a full sand roughly every ten. Sticking to that keeps the boards alive far longer, because every full sand removes timber you cannot replace. A floor refinished every three years will run out of wear layer decades early.
Timber remains the benchmark for indoor sports flooring, and the reason is simple: it performs well, it can be refinished repeatedly rather than replaced, and players prefer it.
The systems divide by what sits beneath the boards. A sprung floor uses resilient pads, foam blocks or engineered cradles under battens, producing an area elastic response that spreads load when a player lands. A semi sprung system uses a shallower build up. A floor fixed directly to the slab has no give at all and is hard on joints where sport is played regularly.
Above that, the playing surface is solid strip or engineered board. Maple is the traditional choice for its hardness and pale colour, with beech and oak also common. Solid strip has a generous wear layer and will take many refinishes. Engineered board has a thinner layer over a stable core, so there is less margin.
The detail that governs longevity is the perimeter. Timber moves with humidity, and a floor without a proper expansion gap and ventilated skirting will lift in the middle. It is skipped surprisingly often.
Herefordshire brings us a rural mix, weighted towards school sports halls, community buildings and club facilities rather than large leisure estates.
School halls are the largest group, and many of them serve as the only significant indoor sports space for miles, which means they take curriculum sport, club training and community lettings on the same floor. That volume of mixed use wears a finish faster than sport alone, and it is why these halls often arrive overdue.
Village and church halls are the second group and the county has a great many. These are almost always old timber floors with plenty of depth left, buried under decades of polish and scored by chair and table legs. Restoration transforms them for a modest sum, and we quote by element so a committee can phase the work across two years if the funds require.
Moisture readings matter in older rural buildings with solid floors and limited damp proofing, and we take them as a matter of course rather than a formality. Sealing over a floor still giving off moisture guarantees the finish will fail.
Herefordshire enquiries reflect a rural building stock where each hall works harder than its timetable suggests.
The most common issue is a school hall that is also the community sports facility, taking curriculum use, club training and evening lettings on the same floor. That volume wears a finish faster than anyone budgets for, and those halls frequently arrive overdue with the seal gone in the traffic lanes.
The second is village and church halls where decades of polish sit over a perfectly good timber floor. Removing that build up chemically before sanding is essential, and it is the step most often omitted from cheaper quotations.
The third is moisture. Older rural buildings with solid floors and limited damp proofing need proper readings before anything is sealed, because a finish applied over a damp floor will fail regardless of how well it is applied.
We quote by element so committees can phase the work when the funds require it.
The honest answer is that we cannot know until we have measured. What we can say is that we price the least expensive effective option as well as the full one, so the decision is yours rather than ours, and that the figure we give you is the figure you pay.
We do, and the wider region with it. Work further from our base is organised as a single concentrated programme so nothing is left unfinished awaiting a return trip, and travel is included in the quoted price.
Every two to three years for most halls. Baselines and service areas wear first, so courts become uneven in appearance long before the floor itself needs attention.
Yes. Every survey produces a written report with moisture readings, board condition, recommended work and firm costs, designed to be usable as budget evidence.
A recoat lightly abrades the existing seal and adds fresh coats without touching the timber. A full sand takes the floor back to clean board. The recoat is far cheaper and is the right answer whenever the seal is worn but intact.
Yes, and for multi site clients it usually should be. We build rolling programmes that spread the spend and take each hall out of use at the quietest point in its own calendar.
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.
Usually because the expansion gaps at the perimeter have closed or been blocked, or because moisture is coming up through the slab. Both need diagnosing before refinishing, or the cause simply repeats.
Usually a two pack polyurethane in a satin sheen. It holds slip resistance and appearance under heavy use, and satin hides scuffing and avoids glare under the LED lighting most halls now have.
Yes, and we set out from measured dimensions rather than copying existing lines. Courts remarked by tracing the previous set drift over the years, and many halls turn out to be dimensionally out.
Photographs of the room and of anything specific that worries you, approximate dimensions or the number of badminton courts, the age of the floor if known, and when the room could realistically be closed.
Book a free survey of your floor in Herefordshire 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.