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Dance like a star on real
hardwood!
The DR1 Dance Floor has 4 huge
advantages:
1. It is semi-portable/removable. When your lease is up, take the floor with you. We spent $10,000 on our first floor and had to leave it behind for the next guy! Your studio will save thousands with this feature alone, you won't help your competitors, and you will be increasing your business' value.
2. It is 100% hardwood. This flooring is manufactured from 7/8" solid hardwood, no veneers or soft center fillers are ever used. The floor boards contain two parallel strips bonded together by an industry exclusive dovetail joining process.
3. Your floor's greatest asset is the thickness of its wear surface. This directly relates to how many times your floor can be sanded and refinished to look like new. This floor offers one of the thickest wear surface available, it has a satin urethane finish perfect for dancing. Your floor can be professionally refinished at least seven times; meaning even if you resurface every 7 years, it will last more than 49 years! You will be retired by then!
4. It is fully floating! You can actually see it flex as you dance, cushioning each step. Save your student's (and your) knees, feet, and back! With the special underlayment and clip system you will love your new, cushioned surface. It's also a selling point with your older students.
The Floor
The floor comes in a variety of colors and types of wood, if special ordered.
Beech (pictured below) is recommended and is our typical price point.
The Cost
Price per square foot (including wood, clips, padding, & instructions) is based on total purchased square footage. A discount is given for more single purchases totaling more than 2000 sqft. and another discount for single purchases over 4000 sqft. Shipping, reducer or transition, and installation are a seperate cost. Pricing is as much as 60% less than the same floor from other retailers.
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Installation
A clip system is the typical installation method. This unique method allows the floor to be installed without wood sub-flooring, nails or the use of adhesives used in traditional glue-down or nail-down methods. One of the many advantages of this system is that the floor is "floating" and actually flexes when walked upon. The inherent softness is much easier on oneç—´ back and knees, making this system a "comfortable" floor. The floor can be permanently glued or nailed down, if desired.
These pictures show the basics of our installation. It took, roughly, 30 hours of totally unskilled labor to install almost 1900 sq. ft. of dance floor. There were 4 of us working most of the time, though at times only 2. The optimal workforce is 4 people, willing to sweat! We had borrowed tools, and a full day without power. Keep in mind: we had never installed a floor! In August of 2004 we installed approximately 1500 square feet in the Birmingham Fred Astaire Dance Studio. That installation took only 18 hours with 4 laborers. It was a simple rectangular room, with few challenges. In March, 2005 we installed 1500 square feet in the Pensacola Fred Astaire Dance Studio. It took considerably longer, since it was a hurricane replacement with several angled walls and specific door ways. New installations should be fairly simple. Generally you can install 90 - 130sq.ft. per hour, depending on labor conditions and the shape of the room.
Click here for a video clip from Houston.
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Installation Photos
Unloading the flooring was our introduction to manual labor. 47 bundles with each bundle weighing 150lbs.! Bundle after 12ft. bundle.Note: Place the floor where you do not have to move it but once!
A little clean up prior to beginning. Remove all debris.
These were the first 3 rows of floor. They always take the longest to get in place. 45 feet of "here we go." Note the clips sticking out from under the boards.
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Jack Rothweiler, CEO of Fred Astaire Dance Studios installing the DR1 hardwood dance floor in Myrtle Beach, SC.
This was the half way point. It is danceable as soon as it is down, and we did try it this day.
About 10 feet remaining!
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It looked great (and still does) and we were so close to being finished.
This picture is a bit dark because our final install day was without any electricity! A 100 mph windstorm knocked out the power to our space, so we ran extension cords from another business to get it done on the last day. We opened the doors on this new space 4 days after this photo was taken.
Here is the finished product. Smooth to the touch, soft on the knees, and gorgeous. Click on the photo for bigger image and a close up of the floor after 10 months of hard use.
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Water hazard!
Like any wood floor, this floor is susceptible to water damage. In December 2004, we found a 7ft. x 7ft. puddle on our floor! It was from a roof leak created by workers. Several of the boards had warped severely, and we thought we would have to remove and replace all of that area. After 30 days we were pleased that the floor had returned almost to normal. We used heat (occasionally) and a dehumidifier (24/7) to remove the moisture with great results. This is not to say that the floor is perfect, but it is getting closer daily. We can say it is no longer an insurance hazard! This actually happened to us 3 times, and each time we recovered without replacing the floor.
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