Court Damage
Athletic courts may develop damage over time. This is especially true for outdoor athletic courts that are exposed to the environment. Wear from play, rain, heat, cold, and dust are just some of the factors that can contribute to the degradation of an athletic court over time. Depending on the type of material the court is constructed from, the type of damage a court develops can vary. Below are some of the most common types of degradations athletic courts experience.
Cracks
Cracks are the most common damage athletic courts experience. Over time, certain types of court materials develop cracks. This is especially true of asphalt courts. Asphalt is a material that becomes very brittle over time, and is extremely prone to temperature degradation. Asphalt relies on its bitumen binders and oils to keep itself in cohesion. Over time, bitumen binders harden and oils waste away, resulting in the asphalt becoming weak and brittle. There is not effective way of repairing aged asphalt courts because even if you patch its cracks, these may come back larger in a few months and/or new cracks will form elsewhere. We always advise our customers with cracked asphalt courts to avoid ongoing crack repairs and instead opt for a permanent solution which is a new post-tension concrete court. This can be built as an overlay or on a new subgrade, depending on the asphalt’s condition and surrounding court environment.
Rebar reinforced concrete courts are another type of court material that ultimately beings cracking after some years. Moisture in the court’s surrounding environment can determine the rate of crack development on a rebar reinforced concrete court. This is due to rebar rust formation within the concrete slab. As rebar inside a concrete slab rusts. The amount of the rust created begins putting expansive pressure against the concrete. When this pressure becomes too much for the tensile force that the concrete is able to handle (the tensile force concrete can handle is significantly less than the compressive force it can handle), the concrete begins to crack. If you have ever wondered why cracks on your concrete court seem to trace a grid-like pattern, it is the rebar grid inside the concrete that the courts are tracing!
Some concrete courts, though reinforced with rebar, are effectively placed in an environment with little to no moisture and minor subgrade movement. Usually, when courts in these types of environments crack, these tend to be relatively small cracks and do not occur often. These types of courts can indeed be effectively repaired via patching. Since the environment is not promoting large and/or fast crack formation, patch repairs made can last a significant amount of time, making the price of repair worth it.
Blistering
Surface blistering is one of the most common issues with athletic outdoor courts. Blistering occurs when the paint surface of the court losses its adhesion with the underlying surface (concrete, asphalt, etc). Once the surface paint loses its adhesion with the surface beneath, water, dirt, and other substances are able to get in between the paint layer and hard surface. Such substances then start to accumulate and begin to “blister”/bubble-up. As the size of each developing bubble increases, the un-bonding of paint to the surface continues to develop in the surrounding of the bubble.
Depending on the severity of the blistering it may be necessary for the court to be court surface blasted off. Surface blasting completely removes the paint surface on the court. This may be necessary because in many cases once the paint surface has started to blister off, adding a new coat of paint over the damaged paint does not fix the underlying issue and the un-bonding between the hard surface and the first coat of paint continues to exist. This means that the court will continue to blister off.
In summary, the solution to repair a blistering court is to surface blast the damaged paint surface and then resurface the court.
Delamination
Delamination occurs when the paint layer loses its adhesion with the hard surface (concrete, asphalt, etc). This is similar to blistering as mentioned above, except that delamination does not exactly blister up. Delamination is mostly due to the age of the court and the natural un-bonding between the hard surface and paint layer over time. If a good hard surface construction and quality resurfacing were performed at the beginning of the courts’ life, then delamination should not occur for quite a few years.
The best repair for delamination is surface blasting the existing paint surface which is delaminating and then resurface the court.
Concrete/Asphalt Spalling
Surface spalling is the degradation of the hard surface under the paint layer. This is most commonly due to the old age of a concrete/asphalt slab which begins to degrade and break down. The image above depicts how concrete can begin to rot/break-down and lead to court surface issues. A court whose hard surface is degrading is very difficult to remediate via any type of patching and/or resurfacing.
The best solution is to build a new hard court as the damaged slab will continue to degrade.
Ponding / Birdbaths
Ponding occurs when a court has significant low-spots and/or an improper slab slope. This causes water that gets on the surface of the court to “pond” and remain on the court until it dries out only by evaporation or someone purposefully pushing the water off the court with a tool such as a water roller. Ponding can cause the sports surface to prematurely weaken and delaminate. Because of this it is critical that an athletic court slab be initially built with a proper and effective slope for water runoff and a level surface free of low and high spots.
If it is a ratio of nearby numerous high-spots to only a few “low-spots” (in which case these “low-spots” are actually pretty leveled with the majority of the court, since it is the high spots causing artificial low-spots), it is possible that the high-spots can be grinded down and leveled with the “low-spots” and the rest of the court’s level. Furthermore, small amounts of patch can be applied to these low spots to help level them out.
If ponding is occurring near the edges of the court, it is possible to grind channels from the low-spots all the way to the edge of the court to allow the water to runoff from these channels.
If ponding areas are relatively large and near the center of the court, the best solution is to build a new slab. Unfortunately, there is no effective way to effectively reduce the ponding of large amounts of depressions on the main body of the court and ponding will continue to damage the sports surface every time water is retained in it. A new post-tension concrete slab, whether as an overlay or on a new ABC subgrade is the best solution to a new safe and effective sports surface from a ponding surface.