What Are The Best Options For School Flooring?

Educational facilites require a fairly broad spread of flooring types. Schools in particular provide a number of different environments for their students of all ages to learn and play. School flooring needs to be flexible in order to accommodate students in these various spaces.

Aussie Flooring Insights as a commercial flooring provider work with a wide range of flooring types suitable for educational spaces. Let’s have a look at some common examples that we work with everyday.

school flooring

School flooring needs to accommodate the varied environmental requirements that all educational facilities inherently have. Let’s take a look at some of the excellent options that we offer.

Carpet

Carpet flooring is an excellent choice for many spaces in school environments. Carpet retains heat, contributing to a warm, comfortable atmosphere. It also absorbs sound very well, making it great for reducing noise reflections in classrooms or offices. Carpet is also slip-resistant, meaning it is very safe.

There are two distinct carpet types – broadloom and modular:

Broadloom

Broadloom carpet is either woven or tufted. Woven carpet is the classic carpet style that dates back hundreds of years and is more labour intensive than other types. Woven carpet is usually more suitable in grander application like hotels or restaurants.

Tufted carpet is more contemporary carpet type and is much more suitable for school flooring – particularly in classrooms and office spaces. Tufted carpet uses far more efficient methods of production, thus is it is ultimately much cheaper than woven carpet.

The process uses specialised sewing equipment to stitch  rows of tufted pile yarn through a backing ‘canvas’ fabric, which you will no doubt be familiar with. The yarn is caught by loopers and then cut off with a blade. There are also various types of backing that can be applied for different performance applications.

These carpets are secured to the floor by a synthetic latex that acts as an adhesive, plus a secondary backing fabric. Tufted carpet is affordable and durable, making it a great choice for schools.

Modular

As its name suggests, modular carpet is made up of ’tiles’ that are held in place by PVC or bitumen compounds that keep the carpet flat and secure. Modular carpeting is very flexible and allows for an array of arrangements to suit many different spaces. Tiles have different features, such as cushioning for greater foot feel and variegated patterning to liven up large expanses. They are also very durable and can be singularly replaced which greatly reduces maintenance costs.

school flooring

Vinyl Flooring

Resilient flooring such a vinyl is another excellent choice for schools, particularly in spaces where carpet is not suitable, such as hallways, art rooms and lecture halls. Vinyl is extremely durable and resistant to the harsh conditions of high foot traffic spaces like hallways. It is also slip-resistant and very safe.

Vinyl flooring is very easy to maintain. Have a look at our guide to maintaining vinyl floors.

There are two main types of vinyl flooring:

Sheet Vinyl

Sheet vinyl is made from coloured vinyl chips which are ‘welded’ together under pressure and heat. It stored as large ‘sheets’ and rolled out on top of a surface then heat-welded into place. This process makes sure that no dirt or residue can be trapped under the surface, ensuring the surface is stable and residue will not disrupt its integrity.

Plank Vinyl

Plank vinyl is manufactured the same way as sheet vinyl, only it is cut into strips, or ‘planks’ to be laid. Depending on the desired style and finish, plank vinyl can have a photographic layer can be added underneath the surface to mimic wood, tiles and other materials. Modern vinyl finishes are very convincing.  Plank vinyl is cheaper to install that sheet vinyl and is an excellent option for classrooms and lecture halls.

There you have it, two great options for school flooring.

Aussie Flooring Insights works with all major flooring manufacturers to ensure we can find the best products for your unique needs. Give us a call or contact us online and let us help you find your perfect flooring.