Rubber & Athletic Flooring

Rubber flooring takes abuse that would ruin almost anything else. Cleats, dropped weights, wet shoes and heavy cleaning machines all land on it. In schools and athletic facilities we install it in locker-room corridors, weight rooms and training areas. In homes we put it down in basements and home gyms, where a dropped dumbbell should not crack the slab or wake the house.

Rolled rubber arrives wound tight from the factory and needs to relax before it is installed. We unroll it in the room and let it lie flat at room temperature until it stops curling and settles to its true size. A roll glued down straight off the truck keeps shrinking after it is in place, and the seams open up.

Most commercial rubber goes down with a two-part adhesive, spread with the trowel the manufacturer specifies and rolled in with a heavy roller. Seams are cut so the edges meet tight, and we keep weight on them while the adhesive cures so they do not lift or peak. Rubber is heavy and the adhesive sets on a clock, so we lay out the room and the order of the rolls before anything is mixed.

Locker areas and corridors have floor drains and cleanouts, and those have to stay working and accessible after the new floor is down. We scribe and cut the rubber around each one so the cover sits clear and can still be opened, and we keep the floor from building up around a drain so water still runs into it. A floor that buries a cleanout or holds water next to a drain becomes a problem for whoever maintains the building.

As with any glued floor, the slab underneath matters. Rubber is more forgiving of an imperfect floor than vinyl, but high spots, old adhesive and moisture still cause trouble. We grind and patch the concrete first, test it for moisture where the adhesive requires it, and finish with transitions where the rubber meets other flooring so the thicker material does not leave a tripping edge.