Tornado Damage Makes Replacing a High School Gym Floor a Race with Time

When an EF-2 tornado tore through Orrick, MO, 35 miles east of Kansas City, in early May of 2014, it caused damage to the roof over the Orrick High School gymnasium. The roof damage resulted in major water damage to the gym floor below. Scott Archibald, the principal at Orrick High School, canceled school for the rest of the year and the graduation had to be moved to another location. The first priority was repairing the classrooms. By the time SVB got the call about replacing the gym floor after the roof and building were repaired, it was late July.

SVB Rearranged Our Schedule to Make It Happen

When SVB got the call, there was not much time to get the gym floor replaced before school was scheduled to begin in mid-August. In fact, Principal Archibald was getting nervous because he couldn’t find any other flooring company who could get the job done in time. At SVB, we had a full schedule on deck, but we were able to rearrange some jobs and work some extra hours to accommodate the gym floor job.

Gym Floor Installation Requires a Complete Floor System

The damage to the Orrick gym floor was extensive. It required tearing out and replacing 8,000 square feet of wood floor. We got to work on July 23^rd. First we removed all of the old flooring and flooring system. Gym floors are different from residential wood floors. They are complete systems because they must take into consideration load distribution, shock absorption, vibration control, resiliency, moisture resistance, and more. There are floating floor systems, fixed floor systems and fixed resilient floor systems.

The New Gym Floor Was Ready in Time for the Start of School

In the Orrick high school gym, we installed an AacerCush I floating floor system. Its padded sleeper system gives it resiliency and shock absorption making it ideal for multi-purpose gyms. The wood is precision milled natural Maple. We applied a Bona sports court water-based finish for durability. SVB can also take care of striping and adding logos to the floor. We are your turnkey source for gym floor repair, replacement or installation. When all was said and done, we had the floor removed, replaced, finished, striped and logo’d by August 5^th. We were tired, but we were proud. Call SVB Wood Floors for help with wood floors for schools, churches, commercial wood floors and more at (913) 213-5187 or (816) 965-8655.