FLOORING IN EDUCATION
EDUCATIONAL FRAMEWORK
Installing sports and multi-purpose flooring in schools? Junckers provides a straightforward guide to the DfE’s new requirements and what they mean for flooring specification.
Earlier this year, the Department for Education released a new construction framework for schools being built or refurbished in the next six to eight years. The new regulations affect how architects and main contractors design and build and what products they can specify. As a flooring professional, it will be beneficial to know what type of sport and multi-purpose flooring is required for each situation, and can also enable you to advise specifiers on selecting the right option to help them meet the new environmental limits and targets for the whole building.
A few years ago, the DfE made area elastic flooring compulsory in all school and educational buildings’ sports and multi-activity halls. They offer the best in terms of safety, longevity, performance and cost for all types of sports, PE, dance, performance and multi-use. There are two categories of area elastic floors that are approved by the DfE: classes A3 and A4 of the European standard BS EN 14904:2006 ‘Surfaces for sports areas – indoor surfaces for multi-sports use –Specification’.
The differences between the A3 and A4 categories lie in the shock absorption and vertical deformation. An A4 floor has higher shock absorption and is therefore more sprung, with greater vertical deformation, meaning the flooring surface bends more.
Area elastic floor systems can be used with underfloor heating and strengthening to cope with heavy loads such as retractable seating systems or machinery. In addition to the stipulation for area elastic floors, there are several new requirements in the DfE’s technical specification manual that affect sports and multi- purpose flooring selection and installation.
20 FLOORS USED WITH FF&E
Perhaps most importantly, the new design rules state a new, specific requirement for the type of floor to be used with Furniture, Fixtures and Equipment (FF&E). For any schools built or refurbished under the new construction framework, floors for multi-purpose halls, sports halls and activity studios where FF&E is used within the space must be timber floors. This includes retractable seating, desks and chairs for when the hall is used for exams, dining furniture, as well as machinery. The type of timber allowed is maple, beech or oak; solid hardwood or engineered wood that has a minimum hardwood veneered surface of 6mm. Vinyl floors are only allowed for use in dedicated dance and activity studios with no FF&E use.
EMBODIED CARBON LIMIT
There is also an introduction of a maximum embodied carbon limit. As a flooring contractor, you might wonder how this will impact your work – what is embodied carbon and why does it matter? Embodied carbon is the energy consumed to extract, refine, process, transport and fabricate a material, product or building. Embodied carbon and operational carbon, the energy used to run a building, make up whole life carbon.
Architects and designers started by significantly reducing the energy consumption of a building, which has a direct impact on the building’s environmental impact. In the last few years, those working at the forefront of sustainable design and build have identified that when you reduce operational energy usage, the embodied carbon in a building takes on a much more prominent
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