Portable event floor

What we add that the catalogue does not.

• Slab moisture, and a damp-proof membrane if the reading calls for one, even though the floor never touches the slab. This item is ours, not KTL's: their moisture story is entirely board-side, customised moisture content and back-lacquered boards, and the catalogue says nothing about the slab at all. On a Thai ground-bearing slab we measure slab relative humidity and specify against the reading, because a portable floor does not make a wet slab acceptable, and panels stored on one are at the same risk.
• Substrate flatness, which we set because the manufacturer does not. No flatness tolerance is published for either portable system. We survey the slab, state the tolerance in the specification, and scope any grinding or patching as its own item rather than let the floor being demountable stand in for it.
• Board moisture content for the destination climate. KTL supply boards at a moisture content suited to the climatic conditions in your area, which only works if we tell them the destination. We state the installation city on the purchase order, whether the hall is air-conditioned continuously, seasonally or not at all, and where the floor is stored between events, because a conditioned hall and an unconditioned store are two climates for one floor.
• Gloss level, fixed at order stage from KTL's four factory options. For an arena with broadcast lighting we specify semi-gloss or lower and record the reason, because the coating is factory-applied and changing it later means sanding and recoating every panel.
• The printed design and the full line set, settled before the order. Logos and game lines are printed onto the panels before lacquering, which is why a portable floor needs no site marking and also why the artwork cannot be changed afterwards without re-manufacturing panels. We fix the identity marks and the complete sport line set at order stage, and record in writing what a rebrand or an added line set would involve.
• Storage and handling, written as part of the floor specification. Trolleys, a store with the right floor loading and door width, a route from store to hall, and a named installation crew, with the manufacturer's installation training or first-lay supervision written into the order if that crew has not laid this system before. None of it can be sized until KTL supply panel dimensions, panel weight and panels per square metre, so we treat those three figures as a precondition of ordering rather than a detail to chase later.
• Perimeter and edge detail. A laid panel floor has a free perimeter and exposed panel edges at every junction with the slab, a doorway or an adjoining surface. We specify the edge ramps or trims, the threshold tolerance and the detail at any post or socket that passes through the floor, because panel edges are where the wear concentrates.
• An inspection at every lay, and a lay count. We write into the operating procedure that the flexi-lock clips, the panel edges and the coating are checked each time the floor goes down, that damaged panels have a named replacement route, and that the number of installations is logged. No cycle life is published, so that log is the only durability evidence the operator will ever have.

What we would put to the manufacturer.

Before anybody signs anything. These are gaps in the published data, not doubts about the floor.

• No panel dimensions, no panel weight, no panels per square metre, no trolley capacity and no storage volume are published. The catalogue's whole statement on the subject is one Summit feature line, light weight panels in ergonomic design for easy handling, and Portable PRO's feature list says nothing about panel weight. All five figures are needed before a store, a truck or a crew can be planned, so ask for them against the actual court size.
• No lay and strike cycle life is stated anywhere in the forty pages, for the flexi-lock clips, the panel edges or the coating. For a floor that is laid and taken up repeatedly that is the governing durability figure, and it is absent. Ask for it in writing, and ask separately whether repeated laying and striking counts as normal wear and tear under the only warranty KTL publish, ten years on the seven-layer UV coating.
• Every timing claim in the catalogue describes laying: a full 700 square metre basketball court within three hours with a team of six. Nothing states a crew size or a duration for taking the floor up, which an operator does exactly as often. Both halves of the cycle are needed before anyone builds an operating model.
• The two portable systems do not share a certification. Summit holds a FIBA licence, number WF73-07, and no BWF grade; Portable PRO holds BWF Grade 1 International Elite and no FIBA licence. Ask for the certificates themselves, and put two asymmetries in the document to them. FIBA is given as a licence number while BWF appears only as a form of words, with no certificate reference anywhere. And the organisation page says most floor systems, portable and fixed, are approved for competition levels 1, 2 and 3, while only five system pages name a FIBA licence at all.
• No shock-absorption, vertical-deformation, ball-rebound or friction value is published for any system, only the EN 14904 class letter, and nothing in the catalogue reports a test on a floor after repeated laying and striking. A tender that asks for measured numbers cannot be answered from this document, so request the EN 14904 test reports.
• Summit's stated underlay includes synthetic turfs and Portable PRO's does not. If the floor lays over a turf pitch, ask what preparation the turf needs, how long it can stay covered, and whether the turf's own warranty survives being covered at all.