Page 24 - Parquet International December 2013

ON FIELD
A SURVEY
The paradox of saving
A wooden sports floor in an indoor sports stadium, under-floor radiant panel heating and parquet blocks that move under the baskets were just some of the problems to be overcome in a new, particularly intricate job MAURO ERRICO
The case we present here can be seen as an example of the paradox of sav- ing, i.e. a good parquet fitter should never “save” when it comes to the mate- rials that dictate the final success of his work. It would be a bit like a cowboy builder looking to save money by “for- getting” to add cement to the screed mix, leading later to not only technical prob- lems, but also extra costs for both the cus- tomer and the builder himself. Unfortu- nately, as various inspections and surveys revealed, the case in hand is the outcome of having forgotten something that led to problems further down the line and which took a lot of money to set right.
The problems
on the “games court”
The object inspected was an indoor sports floor, a large wooden surface installed in- side a sports hall that hosts regular events at both a national and international lev- el. The experts had been asked to consider both the supply and the installation of the wooden flooring for sports use, with spe- cial attention to how the wooden floor- ing had been fitted, as this was used for both basketball and volleyball champi- onship matches. The floor consisted of a
double framework of wooden joists (called “tozzetti”) with an overlying dou- ble framework of decking planks (the lower planks parallel to the longer side of the court, the upper ones perpendicu- lar to the lower ones), a nylon canvas and finally the wooden parquet boards. There was also a quite rare feature for a sports hall: the wooden flooring had been laid on top of a floor heating system. The com- plaint concerned the “gaps that exist” be- tween the extreme peripheral parts (heads or ends) of the boards, particular- ly evident in those areas close to the bas- kets at either end of the court. Indeed, the owners complained that the individual boards in the wooden floor “widened” at the ends, often during games of both bas- ketball and volleyball. The situation was made worse by the non-alignment of the lines marking the court areas, which led to many disputes during the course of games. Protests were so animated that the owners saw fit to take the case to court. Over the course of several inspections, it was also found that the parquet boards with gaps at the ends were never the same and never in the same place.
How could this be possible? A defect can- not just appear and disappear or rather R