[SCA-Dance] Dance Floor Maintenance

flip+ at andrew.cmu.edu flip+ at andrew.cmu.edu
Wed Aug 27 15:36:33 EDT 2008


"tonda" <ghatonda at ctc.net> writes:
>     i ran across your email while researching how to build a dance
>     floor. we are needing two rooms for a dance studio, 25x40 and
>     30x50. can you discribe what materials you used? this is going
>     in an old wal-mart building with a tile floor over concrete.
Hi Tonda!
The dance floor is made of toung and groove AC grade plywood subflooring.
All joints are spanned by a 2x4 board on "flats". (which is to say, the
wide end spans the joint, not the short end.) There is also a central
support board that bisects the 8' dimension of each sheet.
this link
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~flip/dancefloor.html
and more specifically:
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~flip/floorplan.pdf
may be of help.

This will likely provide a "better than concrete" floor surface to 
dance upon, but note that every surface which has a board under it 
will not "spring", but be practically the same unforgiving surface 
that the original floor was as forces will be transmitted directly. 

You might be able to decrease the hardspot surface area by
"suspending" the floor on some closed cell foam "mats" at several
spots under the floor.  If I were doing it that way, I'd use the
puzzle playmats/fatigue mats, at at least double thickness. For a 4x8
sheet, i might suggest at each corner, the middle of each edge, and
the center of the sheet be supported by a brick. Note, that all but
the center have the potential of being shared with adjacent sheets 
which should save on labor/material.

This won't totally eliminate dead/hard spots, but it will greatly reduce
the surface area which is dead, and make the remainder dead spots a
little less hard. I imagine the foam will compress over time, but
it will probably last a while.

Note, this is not a professional floor, and was designed by a
non-professional (me).  I make no claim to it's suitability to your
mostly unstated purposes.  It might be ok for casual, low impact 
dance... but if you want a "real" dance floor, you probably should
hire a professional.  That said, I think it has served very well for
our purposes.

-- 
flip
When you see beyond yourself then you may find, 
     peace of mind is waiting there.
    --George Harrison 


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