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Flooring Professionals To The Leisure Industry
Courtship Flooring is a commercial sports flooring contractor working in Surrey and across the UK. Much of our work is for independent schools and racquets clubs, where presentation is scrutinised as closely as performance.
We have been specialising in indoor sports and commercial timber floors since 1987. The business is family-run, nothing is subcontracted, and the crew who survey a building are the crew who work on it. Domestic and residential projects fall outside what we do and are looked after by 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
A hall photographed for a prospectus or walked through on an open day is judged on detail: consistency of colour across the whole area, crisp edges to the markings, and no visible patching where repairs were made.
That comes from preparation rather than product. Boards matched properly by species and grade, sanding taken to a even finish, and seal applied in the correct number of coats with proper curing. It takes slightly longer and it is entirely visible in the result.
Squash floors are left unsealed so the bare timber provides grip, which makes them a specialist job rather than a variation on a sports hall. Dust control becomes critical, the preparation is different, and standard lacquer systems are simply wrong.
We sand, repair and maintain squash courts to the standard competitive play requires, phasing multi-court work so the club keeps playing throughout. Doing courts alongside the main hall in a single visit costs far less than two separate mobilisations.
A crest or club badge at centre court changes how a hall reads, and for schools it earns its cost in prospectus photography alone. Applied properly it is not a sticker: the artwork goes into the floor finish and is sealed beneath the final coats.
That means it wears at exactly the same rate as the surface around it rather than lifting at the edges. Send us artwork and we will advise on sizing and placement against the court lines.
Harris Academy wanted a sports floor to match its ambitions, so we fitted a complete Junckers solid-beech sports system, the same Danish flooring specified in elite competition venues, finished with full multi-sport line markings.
An installation like that is a long-term statement: properly maintained, it will outlast every pupil currently on the roll. The project ran to programme from bare sub-floor to handover.
~ 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
Two constructions cover almost every timber sports floor we meet. An area elastic floor sits on battens or cradles with resilient pads beneath, and the whole surface flexes together under a landing. A point elastic floor gives only where the load falls, usually a thinner build over a slab where height is tight.
BS EN 14904 sets the targets both must reach for shock absorption, deformation, ball rebound and friction. We specify against the standard and against what the room does, because a hall for netball and a studio for ballet want different responses underfoot.
Surrey’s independent schools often hold a mix of the two, a battened hall from the sixties beside a newer point elastic studio, and each needs handling on its own terms. Identifying the system is the first thing we do at survey, since it determines what repair and refinish routes are open.
Gym floors fail in a way sports halls never do, because the load is concentrated. A dropped dumbbell or a loaded bar coming down on a timber or vinyl surface punches through the finish and often the material beneath. A fitness suite floor therefore needs a different build from the hall next door.
In free weight zones we install or repair heavy duty rubber tiles or rolls over a firm base, with a raised platform for lifting where the loads justify it. Cardio and studio areas take a lighter vinyl or timber finish with the transition detailed so there is no trip edge.
Where a school or club in Surrey has converted a store or classroom into a gym, the existing floor was rarely designed for it, and we assess the substrate before recommending anything. Getting the base right matters more than the tile chosen for the top.
Every school project has a date that will not move, and the programme has to be built backwards from it. Summer is the main window, about six weeks, and it is also when every school in the county wants the same thing, so it books up by spring. Easter and half terms suit screen and recoat visits that need only a few days including cure.
We survey early, order materials ahead of the holiday and staff the job to finish inside the window rather than spreading a team across several sites and hoping.
Open days, prospectus photography, exam timetables and lettings all sit on top of the term dates, and Surrey’s independent schools tend to have more of them than most. We ask for the whole calendar at the outset so the reopening date we put in writing does not collide with an event already advertised.
Working in schools and public buildings comes with documentation, and we supply it with the quotation rather than on request. Site specific method statements and risk assessments, COSHH data for every seal and cleaner we bring in, and our public and employer’s liability certificates arrive before the job starts.
Our team carries enhanced DBS certificates for work on school sites and follows your safeguarding arrangements, signing in and keeping to the agreed area. Where a project falls under CDM we take on the duties that apply.
Bursars and estates teams across Surrey each have their own contractor approval forms, and completing them is part of the job, not an extra. In our experience a contractor who resents the paperwork tends to be careless on site as well, and a school can usually tell which kind it has hired by the end of the first morning.
Surrey gives us a heavy weighting towards independent school sport, alongside academy estates, leisure operator facilities and private clubs.
Independent school sports halls, gymnasia and squash courts are a substantial part of it. These are usually well maintained buildings where expectations of finish quality are high, the work is planned a long way ahead into fixed holiday windows, and a good proportion is preventative screen and recoat rather than full refinishing. That is exactly how a sports floor should be run, and it is why those floors last.
Squash courts feature more here than in many counties. A court polished smooth through the middle needs a matt high grip specification rather than a general sports lacquer, and it is a genuine injury risk rather than an inconvenience.
We completed work at St George Ascot nearby, including a Granwood restoration others had written off.
Leisure centres, clubs and community halls make up the rest, with the usual mix of overnight working and committee budgets.
St George School in Ascot is our closest comparable project for Surrey, and it is the one we point to most often when somebody has been told their floor is finished.
The hall had a Granwood floor which more than one contractor had written off as due for replacement. Granwood is a composite of wood flour and cement pressed into blocks and laid in a bitumen bed. It is not timber, it has no grain, and sanded like timber it is permanently damaged. Replacement would also have meant lifting a bitumen bed, with all the cost and complication that carries.
We assessed the blocks, lifted and rebedded the loose ones, replaced those that had broken up, and prepared the surface with appropriate abrasives rather than aggressive sanding. It was then coated with a modified epoxy system designed for composite substrates, with the line markings applied within the system.
The school now has a hall floor that looks renewed and has years of life left, at a fraction of the cost of replacement.
Every court we mark is set out with laser and tape from the dimensions the governing bodies publish, never copied from what is already on the floor. Netball is 30.5 by 15.25 metres in three equal thirds. Basketball is 28 by 15 metres with the arc at 6.75 metres. Badminton is 13.4 by 6.1 metres for doubles.
Tracing old lines is how a hall drifts. Each remark inherits the errors of the last, and after a few cycles the thirds are unequal and the arc is off. Teams that play at other venues feel the difference without being able to name it.
On timber the lines go on between coats of seal so they finish under the final lacquer and last as long as it does. Where a Surrey hall is too small for a full senior court, we mark a scaled or junior layout rather than compressing one that cannot fit safely.
The figure depends on area, the timber left above the tongue, the number of markings and whether holiday or overnight working is needed. We survey free and give a fixed, itemised quotation, so a bursar can see exactly what each element costs before approving it.
All of Surrey, from Guildford and Farnham to the London boroughs, and the neighbouring counties. We work nationally as well. Travel is a separate line in the quotation rather than hidden in the rate, so the price you approve is complete.
Yes. We work overnight, at weekends and in agreed quiet periods, with the floor walkable by the time you open. Where a hall can be split by area we keep part of it in use while the rest is refinished, and overnight rates are shown separately in the quotation.
Yes. We have carried out sports floor projects internationally and can do so where the scale justifies it. The same team and the same machinery travel, and we plan the shipping, programme and documentation with you well in advance of the start date.
No. Our work is commercial only, for schools, universities, leisure operators, clubs and councils. Domestic sanding and restoration is handled by our sister company, Ryan’s Restorations, and we can pass your details across if that is what you need.
The existing seal is lightly abraded and a fresh coat applied over it, without going back to bare timber. It takes about two days plus cure and is needed every two to three years while the seal is still intact. Leave it too long and the floor needs a full sand instead.
Yes. Split, water damaged or lifted boards are cut out and replaced with timber matched by species and grade, levelled into the surrounding floor, then the whole surface is sanded and sealed as one. The repair disappears into the finish.
Our machines run on continuous extraction with bagged collection, the hall doors are sealed and the ventilation isolated, and we vacuum the hall and access route at the end of every shift. Teaching can carry on in the rooms alongside.
Book a free survey of your sports hall, gymnasium or squash court floor in Surrey. We will assess it, say what it needs and give you a fixed price and a firm reopening date. Call 01823 674562 or send us a message.