A gym floors are a lot like a hardwood floor in a house, but they also have a lot of unique features that make them much more complicated! Gym refinishing is the process of sanding the floors down to raw wood, applying new game line paint and putting down the finish coats. It costs on average between $4-7 per square foot depending on many different factors and needs to be done every 7-10 years. Let’s dive into the specifics. 
 
 
When people think of hardwood floors, they usually think of a house. But a massive amount of the hardwood floors around the world are installed inside gymnasiums, racquetball courts and exercise rooms. The majority of it is hard maple flooring. 
 
There are two different things people mean when when the say “Gym refinishing.” 
Lightly buffing the floor and applying a new coat of finish. This is a maintenance coat that should happen yearly at the minimum. (We cover this down below.) This is not really refinishing. 
A full refinish where the floor is sanded all the way down to raw wood. 
We will explain both of them in depth and get into how much they cost. 
 
In the process of refinishing a maple basketball court in the Michiana area. Two coats of sealer have been applied and the floor is in the middle of having the lines painted.

Gym Wood Floor Refinishing (How It Works)

This is a process that is going to take on average 2-4 weeks depending on the size of your gymnasium. After you hire a contractor the first step is to confirm floor designs for your game lines and logos. 
 

Logo Painting

Most gyms have a logo or team name that is placed in the half court jump circle or along the sidelines. Well this should have been discussed and priced in the estimating process, your contractor is going to need the logo files weeks in advance of the project. 
 
Once you have sent the logo files over, your gym refinishing contractor is going to have the files sent to a print shop that specializes in making vinyl templates. The print shop will make a graphic that is the outline of your logo. Your contractor will then stick this graphic to the floor and paint inside of it. Think of it like a stencil. For every color in your logo, there is usually an additional graphic that must be applied to keep the different colors where they need to be. 
 
After your contractor has finished painting the logos, they are going to peal up the vinyl outlines and throw them away. 
 

What Court Lines Do You Need? 

In the estimating process, you will have already determined what game lines are going to be painted on the floor. If your court is very simple, for example one standard NCAA basketball court, you won’t need to talk about much here. 
 
If your a facility that runs many different games inside of the same gymnasium it may be more complex than that. Are you wanting 3 pickle ball courts painted on top of the basketball court as well? Do you need a volley ball court? It can start to get complicated. You will need to discuss placement and line colors for different secondary courts that are getting painted over the top of the main court. 
 

Marking Out The Court Lines

The first thing the majority of refinishing contractor are going to do the first day of your refinish is mark where the existing game lines are. To do this, they will go around with a punch and hammer and punch small holes at the intersections of where the existing game lines are. This incluses at the corners, half court,  the key areas, and the three point line.
Applying the tape for the basketball jump circle. After this tape is applied, the lines will be painted.
 
This can be done without punching holes, but it requires more work and most contractors aren’t going to do that. If you look very closely you will likely see your floor has the small holes and you didn’t even notice it. If you don’t want your contractor punching holes in your floor, tell them in the estimating process. Many contractors are not used to doing the math and measurement required if holes are not punched. After marking where the lines are going to go, it’s time to fire up the sanders and get to work. 
 

Rough Sanding 

Sanding happens in two stages, rough and fine sanding. Rough sanding a gym floor requires sanders so large and powerful that you will need to have your facility electrician prepare hookups for them before they arrive. These sanders are often hooked together and have a riding cart that goes behind them so that the operator does not have to walk. They will generally do 3-4 passes with these large belt sanding machines followed by a small hand held machine that gets the edges done. 
 

Fine Sanding

After all the finish is off the floor, your contractor is going to do 1 to 2 passes of sanding with planetary sanders or buffers. Ideally they will be using a planetary sander to help the floor come out much flatter. A planetary sander looks like a buffer but has 3 or more spinning heads underneath that flatten the floor much better than a buffer. Your standard buffer jast has one big wheel underneath that helps smooth eveything out. It does the job, but it’s not going to flatten anything. Your will floor will generally be sanded to 120 grit. Then it will time to vaccum up all the dust and seal or stain the floor depending on the options you have chosen. 
 

Staining The Gym Floor

Most gym floors don’t have any stain on them. They are just natural finished with painted game lines and logos. However, facilites with a bigger budget often time will opt to have portions of their court stained. Staining the areas inside the three point arch a custom color or accents along the sidelines of your court is a great way to add some pop to the floor. This can be a great way to add your home team colors to the court in a big way. 
 

Sealing The Floor 

Once everything is a dust free as possible and any staining is completete, it’s time to apply the first coats of sealer. Your contractor is going to use a t-bar applicator and spread the fininish on from oneside of the gym to another. If using an water based finish, they will put two coats of sealer down one right after the other (of course it has to dry in between). If using an oil based sealer,  they will be required to do a light buff and vacuum between coats (we go over oil vs. water based below.) After two coats are down the entire floor will get a quick buff to help the paint stick to the freshly applied sealer. 
 
 
Whats the difference between sealer and finish anyways? Sealer is made to seal up the wood grain and provide a nice base for your top coats of finish. The finish on the other hand is much tougher and provides and even sheen for your gym floor. It looks the same to the untrained eye, but serves a slightly different purupose. 
 
 

How Many Coats Of Finish Does A Gym Floor Need? 

A newly refinished floor is going to get get two to three coats of a sealer followed by 1 to 2 top coats of finish. That makes for a total of 4-5 coats. The type of finish being used and your budget for additional coats are the main factors that affect how many coats you will get. 
 

Painting Game Lines and Logos

Now that our floor has two coats of sealer on it, it’s time to apply the the paint. This process generally takes 2-5 days depending on how many colors need to be applied and how much custom logo work is involved. 
 
Your contractor is going to use a special tape applicator gun and a string line or laser system to apply painters tape. This tape will follow the outline of the game lines that need to be painted. When it comes time to do any curved lines, they will use a special radius control system to tape the three point arch and jump circles. 
 
After the lines are taped up, the giant logo outline stickers will be applied to the floor. 
 

Time to paint!

Generally each color will get two coats of paint with a light buff in between coats to help the next coat stick. After two coats of every color has been applied, the tape will carefully be removed from the fresh game lines and the giant logo sticker templates will be pealed up. At this point your contractor will clean up any paint drips and give a light buff to all the fresh paint to help the finish coats stick to it. 
 

Applying The Finish Coats 

Its time to put on the last 2-3 coats of finish. Your floor may get one more coat of sealer before switching to a top coat of finish. This often depends on whether your paint can be covered by finish directly or if it needs to have sealer go over it first. Sealer may chemically required to go over the paint before finish can be applied.  If you went with a water based finish coat system, your contractor will not generally have to buff the floor between the final coats.If you opted for an oil based finish, your floor will need buffed between every coat. Once the last coat is down, its time to wait! (And keep everybody off the floor.)
 

How Long Before You Can Use Your New Gym Floor? 

This is going to depend on what type of finish has been used. The water based sport floor finish use cures in 3 days from the time of the final coat. Most other water based sport finishes cure in three to five days. If you opted for oil based finish, you are likely looking at seven days before you can use the floor. Once the floor has passed through the original curing period, you can go back to treating it like normal. Be sure to confirm the cure time with the manufacture of the finish used on your gym floor. 
 
Applying the tape for basketball court lines to be painted during the refinishing process.
 

Is Oil or Water Based Finish Better For Gym Floors? 

With VOC laws becoming tighter every year, we see the majority of facilities opting for water based finish. Let’s just look at the list of pros and cons so you can make an informed decision. 
 
Dry times: Water based dries in 3-4 hours per coat while oil based dries in 8-12 hours per coat.  This makes the total refinishing process faster. Longer dry times also allow for more airborne debris to land in the finish and stay there permanently. 
 
Cure times: Waterborne finishes cure faster than oil oil based. Their cure times range from 3-5 days, while oil based cure times are generally 7 days to 80% cure and 30 days to 100% cured. 
 
Yellowing vs non-yellowing: Oil based dries golden and turns yellow with time, while water based gym finish dries clear and does not yellow with time.  
 
VOC levels: Water based finishes have much lower VOC’s (harmful chemicals) than oil based. Water based often have in the range of 200 VOC per gallon while oil based has 500 or more VOC per gallon. The high levels of VOC in oil based finishes actually make them illegal in some states like California. 
 
Odor: The odor of oil based finish is much stronger than that of water based and lingers for much longer (weeks to months.)
Scuffing: Water based finishes show shoe scuffs much more than oil based finishes. This is a very common compliant from customers who are new to having a water based gym floors. 
 
Cost: Oil based is much cheaper than water based (as much as 50% cheaper.)
How Much Does Gym Floor Refinish Cost? 
If you have read this far in the article, you probably understand that it depends. 
 

Factors That Affect How Much A Gym Floor Refinish Will Cost

  • Is there multiple courts to paint?  
  • Are you custom logos complicated with lots of colors?
  • Do you want to custom stain parts of the floor? 
  • Is the job a public project that will require all workers to be paid prevailing wages? 
  • Is gym located far away from refinishing contractors? 
  • Do you want to go with a more costly water based finish? 
  • Are their additional repairs required beyond refinishing? 
The more of these questions you answer yes to, the higher the price will be. 
The average range for gym floor refinishing is $4-7 per square foot. 
 

How Do Gym Floor Maintenance Coats Work? (Screen and Coats)

If your happy with your current game lines and logos and the damage on your floor is very minor, you probably just need a maintenance coat. This is a much simpler process. Your gym will only need to be out of commision for 3-7 days generally. This process should be done atleast one time per year on gym hardwood floors. 
 

Prepping The Floor

The first thing that needs done for a gym floor maintenance coat is to to clean the floor. This will start with simple dust mop. Then a hardwood power scrubber will be used to mop up any dirt or grime left behind. 
 
After the floor is clean, it’s time to do a very light sanding. This is usually done with a large buffer with a high grit sanding pad (220-320 grit). This will scuff the surface to help the new finish stick to the old floor. After vacuuming up any dust, it’s time to coat!
 

Coating The Floor

The floor should get aleast one coat of finish but in ideal circumstances, two coats should be applied. This espcially true of any gymnasium that gets lots of non sport use. Holding church, potlucks or other social gatherings on gym floor will wear them out much faster than sports will. The yearly mainteance coat process is much easier for your facility if you are using a water based finish that dries and cures quicky. It allows you to avoid shutting down for excessively long periods of time while the floor cures. 
 

Pitfalls Of Gym Floor Maintenance 

We often see gym floors that need a full refinish because mistake were made in the cleaning or re-coating process. 
 
We once refinished a 10,000 square foot gymnasium floor because a cleaner had decided to apply a re-coating product that wasn’t made specifically for gym floors. He then decided to try to steam the floor to get it off. Luckily for them, it was able to be fixed with a refinish. 
 

Using The Wrong Cleaning Methods

You should not clean your floors with a buffer or a heavy wet mop. Commercial gym floors should be cleaned using large push mops. 
To remove dust use a standard commercial dust mop. For deaper cleaning use a push mop (not the same one used for dust removal) dampened with cleaner made specifically for gym floors.  This cleaning solution should made or reccomended by the same company that produced the finish thats on the floor. 
 
Using the wrong cleaning solution can cause the yearly maintenance coat to peel when applied. This happens when the when chemicals are introduced to the floor that prevent the new finish coats from adhering to the existing floor. To be sure this will neer happen, always use the manufactures recomended floor cleaner. 
 

Using The Wrong Methods For Yearly Maintenance Coats

Many facilities opt to have their maintenance department perform the yearly maintenance. This can be a good idea to save money, but be careful! The cleaning and buffing process must be done correctly to make the new finish coat adhere to the old. It’s also important to know exactly what finish product to use on the re-coat and apply it correctly. 
 

How Much Does A Gym Floor Maintenance Coat Cost? 

While there are still some variables that affect the price but  it’s a lot less than that of a full refinish. You should expect yearly maintenance to run $1-2.50 per square foot. If you want to handle this in house, I recommend you pay for a consult with the company that did the original finish work. This will help you avoid any catastrophic mistakes!
 
If you need gym floor refinishing or maintenance in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio or Illinois please fill out a contact form or give us a call and we would be glad to help you.