Don Veino mentioned the Montpelier Grange Hall (actually the "Capital City Grange"). We do have a maple hardwood floor, on a wood-joist supported subfloor. This has been an excellent dance floor, with good resilience though not a "sprung" floor. Our Hall is a multi-purpose facility, used for everything from church services, to meetings, to birthday & retirement parties. We had to replace the original maple floor in 2012, after a 60-year lifespan, because it wore down to the tongue-and-groove joints. After doing some tests, we had the new floor finished with "Waterlox Original", a modified tung oil varnish. This finish is largely absorbed into the wood, leaving minimal film on top of the floor. This has worked pretty well to protect the floor, and provide the right amount of friction for contra, square and waltz social dancing. While this works well for these dance events, the wood floor and Waterlox would certainly not be appropriate if the space is used for basketball or other athletic events, which require considerably more friction--as anyone who has contra-danced on a gym floor knows. We did not test the Bona "Traffic" finish which Don describes.

We did decide to protect the new-in-2012 dance floor with vinyl "gym floor" mats, which are left in place except when dance events happen. Dance groups roll up the mats onto PVC pipe "cores", which store on a cart under the stage. For our mix of events, these maps have worked well, protecting the wood floor from food & drink spills, rain/mud/snow tracked in from the parking lot, etc. Dancers are well-trained to change shoes before coming onto the dance floor. We don't have any paid staff to roll up the mats for an event; dance organizers have to arrange for their groups to roll up the mats, and then roll them back out after the dance events. We dust-mop the dance floor, using a light coat of a mop treatment to help pick up dust from the floor, before dancing and afterward before the mats are unrolled.

I also agree that we would never recommend dancing on wood flooring laid over a concrete floor, for the sake of dancers' knees. I do not have experience with the floor systems that Jim Thaxter links to; I would certainly recommend visiting facilities with those types of floors and "test-dancing" on them before planning on using them for contra/square/waltz/social "folk" dancing.

Tim Swartz, President (with everyone's help)

Capital City Grange #469

802-225-8921

On Sat, May 27, 2023 at 5:40 PM jim saxe via Organizers <organizers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

Rob Matson mentioned marley floor coverings. I don't know about whatever different versions of marley may exist, but the one instance that I've ever encountered of something described as a "marley" floor overing seemed, in my opinion, to give far too much horizontal friction for contra dancing.

The idea of "a sneaker dance on a concrete floor" also strikes me as a situation with far too much horizontal friction for comfortable contra dancing.

Rob also mentioned "portable and temporary sprung dance floors". I've danced on portable spring dance floors at several multi-day dance events. Setting up and removing such a temporary floor (at least any of the kinds I've encountered) seem like far too much work for a 3-hour dance.

Don Veino mentioned Bona "Traffic" finish. I've danced on floors finished with this product and found the amount of friction to be right in the sweet spot for contra dancing. The friction isn't so high as to keep dancers feet from sliding at all, this stressing their knees and ankles during buzz-step swings and under-arm twirls (and during waltzes), but it's not so low as to create ta slipping hazard for figures that require a quick change of direction. And as Don said, it seem to work well in a multi-use environment. One hall that used it (no longer available for unrelated reasons) was also used for youth basketball games, and the "Traffic" finish, which (as I said) had low enough friction for contra dancing when participants were wearing dance shoes, also had high enough friction for basketball when participants were wearing sneakers.

Of course having a finish that gives a not-too-sticky-but-not-too-slippery level of (horizontal) friction doesn't address concern Jim Thaxter raised about (vertical) give and springiness.

A couple other points about Bona "Traffic" finish.

1) Bona "Traffic" is a specific product, not to be mistake for any product that some other manufacturer may describe as, for example, "a high-traffic floor finish" and that might or might not have similar performance.

2) Don wrote:

> Our custodian typically damp mops to clean back to a soft shine without issue.

On a floor we use that has a Bona "Traffic" finish, we've been advised not to damp mop with plain water but to use a particular Bona cleaning solution, appropriately diluted with water. I don't know how much difference that really makes, but we follow the advice, and I believe our landlord's custodian does, too.

A final thought for Jim Thaxter: Perhaps this is just stating the obvious, but I think it would be good if you can identify someone from within your community who knows something about architecture/construction/carpentry (enough to sensibly assess claims about the costs of various flooring construction options, their susceptibility to long term effects of humidity, etc.) and who also really, truly understands what makes a surface comfortable or uncomfortable for contra dancing.

--Jim
Santa CLara, CA

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