thanks for chiming in, lucky.
does anyone have experience with pressure washers? i know they come with different psi and gpm (gallons per minute) capabilities. can anyone recommend a make/model?
How to Clean Rubber Skid Marks on a Tennis Court?
we recently met a contact that works for a development collaborative that revitalizes recreational parks in new orleans. we contacted him to secure permission to play on the tennis courts we've been playing on since the new year. we also want to work with them to maybe have the courts lit at night and to be able to use the courts for tournaments. our contact is supportive, but says the one issue that is mentioned by his people is that the surface was recently resurfaced and we leave skid marks on it now.
so, does anyone have a good method that we could use to clean skid marks off of a tennis court, maybe once a month or season or something. pressure washer? chemicals? any kind of solution that would remove those marks and show them that we're trying to work with them will be appreciated.
im looking to buy a new pressure washer, i want to be able to clean my car with it, spray down my siding on my house and also clean my polo court around once a month. i would love to find something used, but if i had a great recommendation for a new one, thats great, i just want to get one year of use for every 100$ i spend. i have spent lots of time on the pressure washer forums but cant find any good info for products that would also work for my polo court.
also please include psi info and gpm info
thanks
Tell them to get over skid marks. There is no easy way to clean that off. Not to mention pouring degreaser into the watershed.
"All of the ingredients used in SkidRid are biodegradable"
-From their website, linked above.
Lots of hazardous stuff is biodegradable. But w/e just something to think about.
TRIM® SkidRid™ is classified as a corrosive waste (pH>12.5) by EPA.
If they ask whether skid marks can be cleaned the answer is clearly, emphatically yes.
If that's all they're asking then that's all you need. Keep your mouth shut about cleaning schedules, who/how/when, etc....
Public managers have voiced a concern, you can offer a solution. That does not mean you're making a commitment to do anything.
When they ask you how often you're going to show up with a pressure cleaner, ask them how often the softball league teams show up with lawn mowers.
Invest in some "hover bikes"
citrus based degreasers work to break down rubber based particles. you should ask the parks dept. what they use.
Rain + time?
right? that's what i thought. i think they want a more proactive solution. we'll see...
You live in New Orleans! It rains there almost as much as Mobile, which is a lot (Cascadia, you think rain there's bad, come down to the Gulf South in August. We have these little things called hurricanes). Tell them that the pollution-enriched NOLA rain is more effective than any amount of scrubbing/power washing. Skids tend not to stick around on our courts because it's so damn precipitous down here. Of course, ours aren't nearly as pretty as yours.
ps: tell your parks and rec to get the fuck over themselves. It's not like anybody but you guys are seriously gonna use those courts, despite the "development" that's supposedly beautifying that park.
the basketball courts there are nice now. they're freshly painted in the hornets' colors. i think they have plans to add a baseball diamond or football field or something too. the tennis courts are underused, though (except by us!).
ps: tell your parks and rec to get the fuck over themselves. It's not like anybody but you guys are seriously gonna use those courts, despite the "development" that's supposedly beautifying that park.
Edit (since the site isn't letting me actually edit this): To any New Orleans parks and rec people: don't let my assholic nature give you a bad impression of the NOLA polo crew. They're a great bunch of guys who really care about their sport and are just looking for a legitimate spot to play. Those courts are great, but the local populace doesn't seem to use them as much as the polo players. These guys aren't going to mess with anyone or start trouble, and they will give those courts some legitimacy as a viable sporting venue. Plus, everyone who has played there loves it, including quite a few people from out of town. Let them play there. People will come and help keep the tourism lifeblood of New Orleans pumping.
This is our cleanup after the nationals. The courts got the most intensive use they had ever experienced that weekend.
We have had 2 differing opinions from within the city administration.
The sports promotion community development guy has said:
As long as your use does not negatively affect others usability of the court, you are fine. The court is there to be used. The city would not act without a complaint, and a complaint of an aesthetic nature would not constitute enough of an issue to have us kicked off.
BUT. staff change around and the perspective of the new guy who now books the court for us is that: there are too many skid marks and it's unacceptable and they have to be cleaned up by 4pm because of a netball tournament.
(There was never any complaint from net ballers)
So it really really depends on the personal attitude of who you are actually dealing with, and because facility managers have never had to deal with bike polo before, they dont have clear policies on it.
Back to the first guy, he has suggested that we could borrow a pressure cleaner from the street cleaner division on a semi regular basis. But we still dont know if this would be very effective.
We do know that after a bit of rain, the skid marks reduce alot, but not entirely.
In the photo above we are using a range of cleaning products from an auto supply store, some work better than others on different skid marks, we never found the ultimate solution.
Note that this only affects back brakers and fixed gears, some people managed to find blue tyres. but unless we got sponsored by the all sizes blue tyre company, fitting everyone out with blue tyres just was never going to happen.
good luck!
So, basically no solution? Why didn't you just say "don't know"? Fuck Damon...
hey thanks for the great info and illustration. that seems like a lot of work that i don't think any of us are willing to do, even for bike polo. i'm hoping that the situation will work itself out and that the people we're dealing with will come to the conclusion that the skid marks are only aesthetic and do not affect the game of tennis (or designate the court to be multi-use). but hey, if they do kick us off one day, at least it will go back to being a drug haven like it used to be.
haha how about we ban back brakers and skid stoppers? Front brake & being able to actually stop and not just slide around FTW.
"The easiest way to remove tire marks from concrete is a degreaser combined with a pressure washer. Soak the stain with the degreaser, let it sit for several minutes, and use a pressure washer to rinse. When using a high powered pressure washer, be careful not to leave pressure washer marks on the surface. The stream should be at least 2 inches wide when it strikes the concrete."
Never used it myself, but a minute on google is all it took to come up with that possible solution.
Wanna buy some polo stuff?
http://www.fixcraft.net/stcago