Can we sand and recoat the court while the rest of the centre stays open?

That is exactly what dust-controlled sanding is for, and the Sandivac SV25 and SV30 are built around vacuum dust control. The court itself still needs to be out of service for the sanding and coating cure, so plan the sequence with your flooring contractor and coating supplier.

Is any of your equipment approved for our sports floor system?

POLIVAC does not make approval claims for any sports-flooring system. Approvals sit with the flooring system manufacturer or your applicator, so check with them, and your distributor can tell you exactly what a given machine does so you can put a specific question to them.

What should we use on rubber gym flooring?

A machine that works into the texture rather than sliding over it, which is what oscillating sander/scrubbers such as the JH-G4 and JH-G5 are for. These are Mitchell machines that POLIVAC supplies rather than manufactures. For tight areas between fixed equipment, the GB380D battery mini scrubber or A23 Mini is more practical.

We are a regional council facility. Can we get service locally?

Most likely yes. POLIVAC supplies through a network of 225+ distributors across Australia, and machines are manufactured in Kensington, Melbourne, so parts do not have to come from overseas. Ask your nearest distributor to confirm their service coverage for your site.

Sporting Complex Floor Care

Sporting Complexes put three incompatible finishes under one roof: a timber court that needs traction and a recoating cycle, rubber flooring in the free-weight areas, and tiled wet areas that have to stay slip-resistant. Add a booking sheet that runs from dawn to late, and cleaning has to fit between sessions.

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Timber sports court floor in a sporting complex

WHAT MATTERS

Floor care built for sporting complexes

Dust on a timber court

Grit tracked in from outdoor fields and car parks does two things on a sports timber floor: it reduces traction for players and abrades the coating under every pivot. Controlling it at the entries and lifting it rather than pushing it around is the whole task, which is why dry pick-up with a WOMBAT canister or KOALA backpack belongs on the daily routine, not the weekly one. Less grit on the court also means longer between recoats.

Recoating inside the shutdown window

Timber courts come up for sanding and recoating on a cycle, and that work usually has to happen while the rest of the complex keeps trading. The Sandivac SV25 slow speed and SV30 Supervac high speed are dust-controlled sanders, which is what makes working inside an occupied building practical rather than a dust event that reaches the gym and the ventilation. Which coating system and which sanding sequence to use is a question for your flooring contractor and the coating manufacturer, not for the machine supplier.

Rubber flooring in free-weight areas

Rubber tiles and rolled rubber trap sweat, chalk and rubber dust in their texture, and a flat pad skates over the top of it. Oscillating sander/scrubbers such as the JH-G4 and JH-G5, which are Mitchell machines POLIVAC supplies rather than builds, work into a textured surface instead of across it. Around fixed racks and machines where nothing wide will fit, the GB380D battery mini scrubber or the A23 Mini does the close work.

Change rooms and pool surrounds

Wet areas are the highest-risk floors in the building and the ones most often cleaned with a mop that just redistributes the problem. Slip-resistant tile has a profile precisely so it holds texture, and that texture holds soap film and body soil unless it is scrubbed into. The A23 Mini works in cubicles and around benches, the SHARK low-profile machine gets under fixed seating and lockers, and your own slip-resistance obligations should set the frequency.

Grandstands, canteen and concourse

Tiered seating is the one area of a complex where wheels are useless, and it takes the full load of spilled drinks, dropped food and ground-in wrappers after every event. Sugary residue on a concrete concourse turns tacky and then holds every bit of grit tracked through it, so it needs lifting rather than spreading. The KOALA backpack vacuum is the machine that makes seating rows and stair treads workable for one operator, with the Mini Terminator for spot extraction where seating is upholstered, and the C27 GEN2 for the concourse and canteen run once the debris is off.

Booked dawn to late

Between the last booking and the first, there is rarely a long block for anything. The realistic approach is short, frequent passes on the surfaces that degrade fastest, with heavier work moved to the genuinely quiet windows and the seasonal break. Compact machines that one person can move between a court, a gym and a corridor without a trolley run are worth more here than maximum coverage on paper.

A sports centre is one of the hardest buildings to clean well, because the surfaces disagree with each other. What a timber court needs is close to the opposite of what rubber gym flooring needs, and neither has much in common with a tiled change room carrying constant water and body soil. Meanwhile the building is booked from early morning training to late-night competition, and the floor most people judge you on is also the one most sensitive to being cleaned wrongly.

POLIVAC has manufactured floor-care machines in Kensington, Melbourne since 1949 and has been ISO 9001 certified since 1997. That includes the Sandivac SV25 and SV30 Supervac dust-controlled floor sanders, the machines that matter when a timber court comes up for recoating, alongside scrubbers, extractors and vacuums for everything else in the complex. The range is sold and serviced through 225+ distributors nationally.

One building, three finishes

Most complexes hold at least a sports timber court with line marking under a coating system, synthetic or vinyl multi-purpose surfaces in secondary halls, rubber flooring through the strength and conditioning area, tiled wet areas in change rooms and around any pool, sealed concrete on concourses and in plant areas, and carpet in offices and function rooms. Cross-contaminating the regime between them is the common failure. Chemistry chosen for tiled showers has no business near a timber court, and the pad that suits a rubber floor is wrong on a hard concourse. The workable structure is a machine and a method assigned per surface, written into the roster, rather than one crew improvising with whatever is on the trolley that night.

The booking sheet is the cleaning schedule

Cleaning frequency in a sports centre is set by usage, not by the calendar. A court that has hosted school sport all day and competition all evening needs attention before the next morning regardless of what the weekly plan says. Practical regimes tend to look like this: dry pick-up on the court after every heavy block, wet cleaning of change rooms daily and often more than once, rubber flooring scrubbed on a frequency that matches how much it is used, and concourse and foyer work overnight. Deeper work such as court sanding and recoating with the SV25 or SV30 goes into the seasonal break, which is also the sensible window for extraction of function-room and corridor carpet using a Predator or Terminator.

Buying and servicing between seasons

Sports facilities often run lean on maintenance staff and rely on a mix of in-house and contracted cleaning, so machines need to be straightforward enough that a casual operator is not the weak link. POLIVAC sells and services only through distributors, with 225+ across Australia, including regional coverage that matters for council-run and school-attached complexes a long way from a capital city. Get the distributor into the building rather than deciding from a catalogue: they can see the court, the gym floor and the change rooms together, and they can be honest about what will not fit between your equipment racks.

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