Resurfacing a multi-court facility without closing it all

A club with eight courts cannot close eight courts for a week in June, and a city with a bank of twelve cannot either. The way around it is phasing, and phasing is mostly arithmetic and a little diplomacy. Here is how we plan a multi-court job so the program keeps running, the colors match, and the whole facility is done before the season ends.

What one court needs

A resurfacing has fixed waits in it: a day to wash and repair, a day of drying, a day for the resurfacer, a day for each of two color coats, lines the day after, and a day or two of cure before play. Call it six working days of calendar for one court, and the crew is on the court for perhaps half of that; the rest is the coating curing. Two courts side by side take the same six days, because the crew works one while the other dries. That is the first piece of arithmetic: courts in pairs cost almost no more calendar than courts alone.

Phasing a bank

Courts share run-off and fences, so the natural unit is the pair, or whatever is fenced together. We close one unit, keep the rest open, and move down the bank. An eight-court club in four pairs takes about four weeks of calendar with six courts always open; a twelve-court bank in three groups of four takes about three weeks with eight open. The club's job is to tell the members which courts are closed which week and to move the leagues, and the most useful thing we can give the club is a calendar they can post. We give it the day the contract is signed and we revise it the day the weather changes it.

Which courts first

The worst ones, unless the program says otherwise. The courts with working cracks go first so the membrane repairs cure longest before the color; the show courts go last so they are freshest for the fall season. If a tournament is coming, that pair is finished a week before it, not the day before. The crack repairs on every court can be done on the first day of the job, across the whole bank, before any court is closed for coating, which shortens the closures.

Matching the color

Acrylic color is mixed by batch, and two batches of the same color from the same maker are very close but not identical. On a multi-court job we order the color for the whole facility at once and apply the color coats across the bank within the same weeks, so the courts match. Where a facility is done over two years, four courts this year and four next, we tell the club the second group will look a shade brighter for a season, because the first group will have had a year of sun. Choosing colors with that in mind, and keeping the same surround color, makes the difference hard to see.

The weather

Every wait in that calendar is a weather wait. A wet week adds a week; it does not change the order of the work or let anyone skip a coat. The only defense is to start early in the season, when there are weeks to spare, rather than in August, when there are not. The season page explains the window; for a multi-court job, booking in February for a May start is the sane plan.

What it saves

A bank of courts done together costs less per court than courts done one at a time in different years: one mobilization, one wash day, color bought in bulk, the crew moving between courts instead of between towns. And the courts age together, which means the next resurfacing is one job too.

The checklist for the board

• Pick the order: worst courts first, show courts last, tournaments protected.
• Agree the color scheme for the whole facility, and order it all at once.
• Post the calendar and move the leagues; expect the calendar to slip with rain.
• Do all the crack repairs on day one, before the closures.
• Keep water available and the gates open to the crew.
• Plan the next resurfacing as one job, in five to eight years.