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Flooring Professionals To The Leisure Industry
Courtship Flooring is a commercial sports flooring contractor working in Northern Ireland and across the UK. We plan projects here as complete residencies with everything agreed and priced before travelling.
Trading since 1987 and family-owned throughout, we handle indoor sports and commercial timber floors from first survey to long-term aftercare, with our own crew and equipment on site at every stage. Domestic and residential projects are the province of 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
Nearly four decades of specialist work on indoor sports and commercial timber floors, our own machinery and crew, and no subcontracting at any stage. That combination is what allows one warranty to cover the whole system.
It also means the person who surveys your building has personally worked on floors like it, which is why our quotations tend to hold and our programmes tend not to slip.
If it is a commercial wooden floor, we can almost certainly restore it: sports halls, gymnasiums, school and church halls, stage floors, squash courts and parquet.
Timber is the only sports surface that can be renewed repeatedly rather than replaced, and a full sand and seal costs a fraction of a new installation. Where a floor genuinely has reached the end, we say so with the measurements to support it.
Larger projects and grouped work justify the logistics comfortably; a single small repair rarely does. We will tell you honestly which category your project falls into rather than quoting for something that does not make sense.
Where several facilities coordinate, the mobilisation is shared and the economics improve considerably for everyone involved.
Not every floor we save sits in a sports centre. St Katherine’s had the kind of well-loved, well-worn hall floor that carries badminton one evening and a community event the next, and the committee wanted it rescued rather than replaced.
We restored it completely. The hall is now set for another few decades of everything it is asked to do.
~ 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.
Community buildings ask more of a floor than almost anything else, because the same square metres take a toddler group, a badminton club, a parish meeting, a fitness class and a wedding reception in the same week.
The characteristic damage is scoring from chairs and tables going out and back constantly, rather than the concentrated wear a sports hall shows. That is good news, because fine scoring sands out easily and these floors usually have plenty of timber left.
The other characteristic is decades of polish. Many community halls have been polished for thirty years, and that build up has to be removed chemically before sanding or it clogs every abrasive. We allow for it rather than discovering it.
We quote these jobs by element so a committee can see exactly what each part costs and phase it across two years if the funds require. That transparency matters more here than anywhere, and it is why much of this work comes by recommendation from one committee to another.
Gym floors fail differently from every other floor in a building, because the damage is point loading rather than even wear.
Dropped dumbbells, plate loaded machines dragged rather than lifted, benches shuffled across boards and racks bolted down and later moved all leave dents and gouges. Sanding removes a surface but a deep dent stays a dent, and part of our survey is telling you which marks will come out and which will not.
Chalk and sweat are the other half. Both soak into timber wherever the seal has worn through, and chalk in open grain can leave a permanent grey cast in the lifting area.
Rubber matting laid straight onto a sealed floor and left down for years traps moisture and can bond to the lacquer, so lifting it takes the finish with it. It is one of the main reasons gym floors arrive in worse condition than the sports hall next door.
The answer is usually a harder finish, an extra coat in the free weight zone, and a proper lifting platform where the weights actually land.
Not every indoor sports surface we are asked about is a conventional sports hall, and the smaller spaces have their own requirements.
Indoor training rooms, cricket nets, golf simulator bays and small multi use areas all sit somewhere between a sports floor and a commercial floor, and the specification depends almost entirely on what actually happens in them. A cricket net area takes hard impact in a very small zone. A simulator bay needs a surface that will take a swing without marking. A general training room needs resilience and grip without necessarily needing ball response.
The mistake we see most is specifying these rooms as though they were miniature sports halls, which is usually more floor than the space needs and occasionally less durable than it requires.
We will ask what the room is genuinely used for and specify to that, including whether a resilient surface, a coated system or a straightforward timber refinish is the sensible answer.
Work in Northern Ireland comes to us from schools, university and further education sport, leisure facilities and club buildings, and the difference from a mainland project is the planning rather than the work.
Because a crossing is involved we programme these jobs as continuous blocks, with machinery, abrasives, coatings and spares all travelling with the team. We carry more spare than we would on a local job, because nothing can be collected the same afternoon. That makes the programme tighter and the dates more reliable, since everything has to be resolved in advance.
School sports halls are the largest group, with the fixed term dates that govern every school project. University and further education facilities follow, with the narrow year round windows that campus sport always has.
Leisure centres are the third group, where keeping the building trading generally means overnight working.
Sequencing matters here more than almost anywhere. Two or three projects booked into one trip brings the cost down for all of them, so it is always worth mentioning if you know of another facility considering work.
The enquiries we take from Northern Ireland tend to fall into three recognisable groups.
The most common is a school hall that has gone a long time without a proper refinish, partly because arranging specialist work has never been straightforward. Those floors usually have plenty of board depth left, though staining in the traffic lanes may not fully lift after that long.
The second is halls that have been recoated repeatedly rather than refinished. Coat over coat eventually clouds and peels, and the only real answer is to take the floor back properly and rebuild the finish.
The third is markings, where courts copied from previous sets have drifted from correct dimensions. We set out from measured governing body figures rather than from the paint already on the floor.
Because we plan these as continuous blocks with everything brought with us, sequencing several facilities into one trip makes a real difference to cost.
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.
Size, condition and specification set the price. We survey free of charge, take moisture readings and measure remaining board depth, then quote a fixed sum with the scope itemised. If a cheaper approach will genuinely work, that is what we will recommend.
The whole area and its neighbouring counties. We have worked the length of the UK since 1987, and remote projects are simply planned more thoroughly rather than priced at a premium.
We have, as far as Saudi Arabia. International projects are planned as complete programmes with everything agreed and priced in advance.
We can provide the specification detail and firm costings that Condition Improvement Fund and Sport England style applications require, and our survey reports are written with that use in mind.
Our machinery runs with dust extraction throughout and we manage containment so the rest of the building keeps operating. It is a practical requirement in occupied premises, not a courtesy.
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.
An area elastic floor deflects across a wide area when loaded, which suits ball sports. A point elastic floor deflects only where loaded, which suits fitness and dance. Combined systems provide both.
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.
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.
A failed pad, cracked batten or tired cradle beneath the boards. It is a structural problem, and sanding the surface will not change how the floor feels. We lift the boards locally and replace the failed components.
Yes. We deep clean, reseal, remark and fully recoat synthetic sports surfaces, and a PU floor recoated in a fresh colour with new markings looks like a new installation for a fraction of the cost.
Book a free survey of your floor in Northern Ireland 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.