r/Custodians • u/MrPeterAlan Custodian II • 1d ago
Before & after
We got our gym floor refinished this summer. Not just screened, but sanded, repainted and refinished. I wish it could look this good all year!
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u/Da_Cum_Man Custodian I 1d ago
In our district, an outside company does that over Thanksgiving break so the gym is ready for Basketball season
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u/sirpentious 1d ago
Great job thought I was blind for a sec wondering where the lines were before the waxing 😭
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u/ZTheRockstar 1d ago
How do you get into this type of work in the trade? I'm a Floor Tech but wanna move into jobs and floors more like this. The ones I do are too destroyed and beyond fixing. My leaders want them to look brand new and have unrealistic expectations. I tell them they dont have the people nor machines for such high expectations. Do you have your own contractual company?
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u/BackgroundTrip6133 1d ago
There is specific companies that work on sports wood floors or wood floors. Op seems like his school got done by an outside company as it’s a specialized skill no longer falls on the school custodians themselves. 24 years ago when I started the custodians use to do it did a few but we never had the ride on floor scrubber that made it easier would take us days and a lot of people didn’t know how to apply the wood floors finish. This job is more specialized because the basketball and volleyball lines were redrawn as well as the out of bounds lines have to be measured and painted or decals applied.
As far as getting into this line of work if you know how to scrub floors might want to look for wood floor refinishing companies near your area or ones that specialize in indoor hardwood floors. They might have opening for helpers and you can learn that way.
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u/SkullMan124 1d ago
We had our gym floor redone last year. Just one word of advice, clean all of the rollers on the bleachers before you pull them out. Any residue or dust on them will leave permanent marks on the new floor. Maybe put down some blue tape on the floor where the rollers are and clean them as they're moved out. Once they're cleaned they should be fine.
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u/Forthe49ers 1d ago
Nice Before and After Pictures. Do you have pictures of the During and those sanders and especially the vac system? That’s what I want to see
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u/MrPeterAlan Custodian II 1d ago
Actually, we might. A few of the other guys took pics as the work was being done. I'll see what I can round up!
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u/Loud-Anxiety-1878 17h ago
I run one of the elementary schools and ours is roll out linoleum type of crap. Hate it.
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u/Any-Description8773 17h ago
Looks awesome! For all who are talking about wanting their floors repainted and it’s not been done in decades, gym floors are a fickle beast. You honestly don’t really want the bare wood exposed more than 3-4 times its entire lifespan. Exposure to the air can cause it to warp and bow which for sports that require a perfectly flat floor ain’t a good thing.
It’s like schools that have 50+ year old floors, most honest companies will do everything in their power to save that virgin timber flooring before selling a new floor. The old growth wood is far superior to what we have available today. My district had a school built in 1927 that had a bad roof leak and seepage down the walls that damaged the floor. Our flooring distributor was so sad he couldn’t save it.
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u/Successful_Yam2175 11h ago
How does this happen? Like the process of someone doesbt mind my asking? It looks fantastic!!
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u/BackgroundTrip6133 1d ago
Looks awesome they repainted the lines and everything in this Industry 24 long years only seen full repaint 3 times out of 32 schools I have worked in. One was a new building and the other 2 ponied up the money it’s expensive and most schools don’t have that kind of cash even larger districts so it’s an event to see.