Work hard, play hard

By Emma Peterson. 

Learn about the research and engineering processes that make athletic courts more sustainable and better to play on. 

Urban heat islands (UHI) are a growing issue in the modern built environment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports, “The heat island effect results in daytime temperatures in urban areas about 1–7°F higher than temperatures in outlying areas and nighttime temperatures about 2–5°F higher.” With UHIs only predicted to grow as the built environment develops, various issues will grow with them, including increased energy consumption, elevated levels of air pollutants and lowered water quality. But there are ways to mitigate this issue, specifically with coatings! In this episode of CoatingsCast™, Tom Magner of California Sports Surfaces stopped by The Coffee Shops to chat with Heidi J. Ellsworth about the sustainability of their products. 

Many people don’t think about what’s under their feet, but sports surfaces, such as basketball and tennis courts, are highly engineered spaces. Tom explained, “A court needs to be resilient or shock absorbent. Something that’s 8% or 10% shock absorbent will take pressure off a player’s joints and muscles without changing the game itself...And then there’s the texture of the surface, which people may not realize is not just paint. It's a specialized coating that provides footing for the player, and some safety if it's dewy or a little wet outside, but it also affects the bounce of the ball.” On top of these technical details to balance, sports courts are especially vulnerable to the UHI effect. Tom elaborated, “We saw a lot of courts get too hot. Our colleagues in Australia were dealing with some tournament temperatures where the courts could get up to 160 degrees sometimes.” 

This may seem like a lot of factors to keep track of, but at California Sports Surfaces it’s just another day in the office. They are leaders in the sports surface sector because of their innovative products like their cool top coatings. These coatings use solar reflectivity to reduce the heat that builds on the court to increase players’ comfort by reducing the UHI effect. Tom shared a bit of the history of these types of products, “This is not a new concept. Some of our competitors have some yellow colors and what have you. But they all ran into the issue that the colors that are most reflective aren't necessarily the best to play on. The brighter, shinier colors often also create a lot of glares. It's difficult to see the ball, and they tend to fade faster or get dirty faster.”  

What makes California Sports Surfaces stand apart and led to their successful cool top coatings is that they are a part of ICP’s Building Solutions Group, who have members who work in the roof coating industry. Tom explained, “We were able to look at some of the roof coating technology and some of ICP’s other products and now we've expanded it into sports surfaces. And that's one of the beauties of being part of a larger company that dabbles in so many different parts of the envelope.” 

Read the transcript, Listen to the full conversation or Watch the webinar to learn more about California Sports Surfaces and their innovative, sustainable solutions!