Blog

Let’s start with the heart of the school: the classroom.

Classroom Floors

Aesthetic matters here more than many realize. Students have to be able to feel comfortable without zoning out. They have to be able to focus without being distracted. Classroom floors need to be safe and slip resistant. Students also beat floors up: shoes bring in grit, chairs are pushed, desks rearranged. Durability is a major concern.

Carpet Tiles: These are ideal for floors that need to be comfortable, soft underfoot, and insulate well. School carpet tiles should be low profile. This makes them very durable under heavy foot traffic. These tiles are also slip resistant. Each tile has its own base and backing, so underlay isn’t necessary. They’re installed directly to the subfloor.

You have a wide choice for design options, since each tile can be the same or a different color or pattern from the one next to it.

Best of all, if there’s any exceptional damage to a tile, you can pull that tile up without having to remove the furniture from the room or pull the whole carpet up. You simply remove that tile – usually 1-2 square feet – and replace it with another you’ve kept in storage.

One hidden advantage of carpet tile is that teachers are often on their feet all day. While all the classroom options offer some softness underfoot, school carpet is the best for cushioning stress on joints. When you consider easing this stress day after day, this can make for more comfortable, healthier teachers who are able to focus better.

Vinyl Tile: This tile comes in two forms. VCT is vinyl composition tile and has been used widely in schools for decades. It contains some vinyl, mixed with limestone and other ingredients. This makes for a porous material, which means VCT requires a somewhat high degree of maintenance – it needs to be waxed and polished regularly. Nonetheless, it’s durable under high traffic and inexpensive.

Luxury vinyl tile, or LVT, is a preferred option these days. It’s 100% vinyl, so not porous. It uses a photographic layer, so it can feature any pattern you like or even emulate the look of other materials. On top of this is a very durable wear layer. LVT will last longer and hold up better underfoot than VCT. Maintenance is much easier, and there’s no need for constant wax applications.

Laminate: This is an option that isn’t as popular as it once was. Other flooring options have caught up and surpassed laminate as an option. Nonetheless, it’s worth mentioning – it’s an inexpensive option that’s resistant to scratching, fading, and other types of damage. However, it’s not recommended over carpet tiles or LVT for the classroom.

Hallway Floors

School flooring options for corridors and hallways must be resilient. Vinyl tile is a good choice here. Again, VCT has been more traditionally used but requires a high degree of maintenance. LVT is the better choice when projecting costs forward.

School flooring options can learn from other highly trafficked institutions, though. Namely, hospitals have pioneered the use of resilient rubber tile. You may not want to compare the two for many reasons, but this is just about flooring: many of the same priorities hold true for each type of institution. Floors need to be durable, spill-resistant, and easy to clean. They need to be slip resistant, but if someone does fall then a resilient rubber floor will cushion the blow. Rubber flooring offers less risk of injury. A broken bone on a harder floor may just end up as a bruise on rubber tile.

You may picture rubber tile like walking on a pencil eraser stick, but that’s not what it’s like. Chances are you’ve walked on rubber tile many times before without realizing it. Rubber tile is much more resilient in nature, extremely resistant to gouging, scratching, and scuffing. It’s very durable under foot traffic. Yes, a rubber pencil eraser may wear quickly, but consider the rubber still used in many tires and the years of hard wear they’re able to take without losing shape or detail. Rubber floors are even more resilient than that.

Rubber flooring was very limited in its look for a long time. As more schools and other buildings have found it exceptionally useful, the variety of looks rubber tile offers has increased. Today, rubber flooring for schools can achieve any pattern or appearance. It’s easy to customize patterns, logos, colors, or anything else.

Special Considerations

There’s a lot of variance in need from one classroom to the next. To use an obvious example, don’t use school carpet tile in a science lab setting. While carpet tiles are spill resistant, spilled chemicals are another story. The same may go for art classes where paints may be spilled.

Carpet tiles are perfect for grade school classrooms, or most specific subjects (e.g. language arts, history, etc.).

For gyms, seamless vinyl options are available and very useful. You may want to consider epoxy flooring, which has exceptional durability. Older gyms are made with strong wooden floors, but newer, resilient materials can cushion falls and create much less stress on joints. These materials can also hold up under heavy loads for special events.

Considering all your school flooring options? Don’t hesitate to contact BERAS; we’ll help you find the right surfaces for your needs.