Have you ever tried to sweep a tennis court by hand? Especially an artificial grass court. Well from experience I can tell you it’s no easy feat although it will give you a good workout / heart attack!! So is it worth spending a few pounds on making life easier? I should think it is and to ease the burden Sweepfast have a wide range of sweepers that will clean and maintain tennis courts, netball courts, bowli9ng greens, car parks, drive ways, garden paths, etc etc
This is an all mechanically driven petrol engine sweeper that comes with a collector box included in the price.
It will sweep 600mm wide and the brush can be set to sweep left, straight ahead or right.
It comes in at an impressive £615.00 including VAT and delivery and carries a 12 month warranty.
It has several bigger siblings from the 710TGE with three forward and one reverse gear at £670.00 incl.
Handy Sweep 710TGE
And then on to the versatile Combi machine with three quickly detachable heads on one power unit, a sweeper, a snow blower and a scraper blade all for £1275.00 incl.
Texas Combi-800TG Three in One
For the professional user we would recommend the Powerbrush range of hydraulically driven machines starting the the Powerbrush 750 machine at £2,900.00 incl
Powerbrush 750
and the biggest in this range is the Powerbrush 1010 which weighs in at £4,375.00 incl.
Analysis of the infill in a sand filled synthetic grass pitch
Just imagine that a few years ago you spent thousands of pounds on an all weather hockey pitch, or tennis courts, and as you look out of the window at it now and see ducks wading about on it you’re aware that all is definitely not well. Maybe closer inspection reveals sludge patches, and green ribbons of broken fiber running across the surface? If so then it is a signal that the infill is becoming contaminated with all manner of biological contamination and this has reached such a level where it won’t drain the rain water away, or at least only very slowly.
A quick panic call to a specialist installer might bring back the comment that “Oh yes it’s quite common, but the synthetic grass surface needs replacing at a cost of £ thousands”!! As you stare at the ceiling and wonder why you are lying on the floor, it all comes flooding back. Your groundsman finding you there says “Don’t worry boss we can get the surface tested by Sweepfast, and see if we really do need a new pitch” Following a brief call to Sweepfast, and a site inspection carried out, you are now in possession of a sedimentation test report with the results that show:
the pitch isn’t worn out and actually has only worn a few millimeters from it original height
the infill is contaminated and the levels are well over 10%
the pitch can be “refurbished” for a fraction of the cost of a replacement
Happy Days!!
Extracting Contaminated Sand from a Synthetic Grass Pitch @ 70% Contamination
Test results in the past have shown, particularly on RAF pitches near the sea where sea gulls spend a lot of time dumping “fuel” on the pitch, contamination levels reach over 70%, and a full refurb and sand replacement have dropped this down to less than 1%.
An indication backed up by facts that the Hydrofast System from Sweepfast is extremely effective at extracting sand from long pile sand filled synthetic grass surfaces, cleaning the pitch to ‘as new’, and even cleaning out the drainage holes in the backing, a thorough job indeed.
For more information call Sweepfast on 0121 747 9255 or simply visit www.sweepfast.com.
I am often asked what we recommend and use for lining artificial grass, and whether the lines should be inlaid into the new pitch or painted on the surface.
If I was installing a new pitch I would have no hesitation with the answer. I would paint all of the lines on the surface with artificial turf paint and be prepared to over-paint them on an annual basis. The reasons for this are twofold, firstly, as the pitch ages huge stresses are applied to the carpet as it contacts and expands during extremes of temperature. Where are the weakest points on the carpets? Where the lines are cut in and cross carpet roll seams, especially where two different coloured lines cross each other.
Seam Failures
Secondly I have seen so many pitches that have slightly moved on the shock pad over a period of time with the result that side lines, centre lines etc, are no longer straight. In extreme case we have had to mix STC paint to the same colour as the pitch and then reline over the top with our beam rider.
Next question what do we use? One thing we don’t use is two pack polyurethane paints, although these paints look great when they are applied and last exceptionally well they are, in my opinion a major problem for the following reasons, foot traction is different on the painted line, they can be slippery and also abrasive if someone slides on them, the big problem however is that the lines painted with this material do not wear at the same rate as the rest of the pitch, after a number of years the line will stand proud in high wear areas, this can effect ball roll, especially for hockey, and potentially become a minor tripping hazard.
Removing Proud Lines
The above situation occasionally occurs with flexible paints, when repeated applications or certain weather conditions produce a hard and raised build-up of paint.
If problems with raised lines occur we have developed a machine to remove them from certain types of carpet.
To get a free site visit and discuss your particular requirements please call 0121 747 9255, or email info@sweepfast.com
A call came into the office a few weeks ago from a customer asking if we could go and inspect the artificial grass pitch at the university site in London, which had been damaged and subsequently repaired by ……………………… When we arrived, the customer said to us “It’s bad” ….. It couldn’t have been a more accurate description of the state of the pitch, and in all my years experience it must be the worst ever. The pitch was now out of use for safety reasons and was costing the university a small fortune in coach trips and pitch hire.
Many of these failures could have been avoided if the previous repairers had not tried to stick seaming tape to seaming tape without first keying the back of one one the tape runs to allow the adhesive to bond. It’s absolutely imperative that the repairers / contractors keep pressing the seams as they are curing if not they will lift and separate, where have I heard that before?
However we agreed to put things right and to this end we sent down three teams of men and machinery to completely cut out the failed joints including the old tape etc etc. and inserted brand new matching material and re-join it to the old pitch and make a safe playable surface again. The time taken? 180 man hours plus 130 sq m of new material and 100 kg of adhesives and hardeners.
Works completed and the pitch re opened, happy days, but it could and should have been avoided, if it had only been done properly in the first place. The lesson? use a contractor with experience in installing and repairing these types of surfaces.
From short pile tennis courts through to water based and sand dressed or filled pitches, the result is the same; everything was going fine then, one morning, the surface starts showing signs of sludge across the surface.
Electronic Microscope Close Up Of Algae Infestation In a Synthetic Grass Surface Pre-Spray
Simplified, the typical drainage scenario on a sand based pitch is as follows; for several years everything appears fine, and drainage is good. Suddenly, the drainage rates slow down and then, after a further year or so, the drainage fails. Water can’t percolate through the surface as it should; the organic contamination in the pitch floats to the surface, water then drains slowly through the lowest spots on the surface, leaving the sludge behind as dark coloured puddles.
Usually, with either a visual assessment or sedimentation testing, it is possible to determine what stage these surfaces are at in their lifespan, in respect of drainage and sedimentation. However, algae nullifies everything. Really rapid blooms can lead to temporary drainage failures, and this has the same result as a conventional drainage failure. Water cannot drain through the surface, even relatively small percentages of contamination can be flushed to the surface and leave the dreaded sludge puddles.
You can remove the sludge from the surface, but as with conventional drainage failures, as soon as it rains again it’s back! You can spray it with any one of the dozen or so chemicals available, keep your fingers and everything else crossed and hope that you have good results!
Moss and algae infestation can be a serious problem on all types of outdoor sports and amenity surfaces.
Failure to treat the algae and moss quickly can eventually mean that only a full refurbishment of the surface will restore the pitch.
Early treatment is essential with a safe and effective moss or algae killer
Same Location Post Spray With RBT 247
Moss usually has two growth periods during a year, the first in the autumn, after which the plant produces spores during the winter ready to germinate in the following spring. The second in the spring, when the plant produces spores again ready to germinate in the autumn, thus continuing the life cycle.
Algae is also a serious and potentially hazardous problem on artificial surfaces, particularly water based hockey pitches, as it can severely impede drainage, especially under the present UK weather conditions. If you can see moss on the surface of your court or pitch, you probably already have a significant algal infestation, as the two thrive in the same conditions.
Three easy to spot indicators of the presence of algae on your surface are:
1) a slippery surface
2) dark patches that vary in size
3) a players clean white kit becoming extremely dirty during a game, especially if they fall over
Algae should be treated promptly because of the potentially hazardous conditions it can create for users of the surface.
Try to prevent the moist conditions that favour the establishment of moss and algae by maintaining good surface water infiltration and drainage. Unfortunately, the moist conditions cannot be avoided on a water-based pitch.
Inspect the surface for moss or algae on a regular basis, and treat any outbreaks of moss or algae as and when required.
Treatment:
To treat an infected area effectively, it must be sprayed with a proprietary brand of Moss & Algae Eradicator. This can be applied using tractor mounted sprayers, walkovers and knapsacks at most times of the year, providing conditions are moist.
Spot treatments should be carried out as and when required during the rest of the year.
Sweepfast can offer autumn winter servicing to your surfaces, this may include; sludge removal from the surface, spaying the whole area with an algaecide, working the algaecide such as RBT247 into the surface and re-spraying the surface 7-10 days later, moss is best treated with MMC Pro Which has a fast working time and will continue to clean the surface for many weeks afterwards.
“Can you clean my tarmac tennis court?” The voice at the other end of the phone says. “It’s got a bit of moss on it” they add, it’s then that you know it’s really bad.
But it’s not all bad news, and a tarmac court is easily cleaned off using high pressure water through a flat surface cleaner to spread the pressure out so it doesn’t rip up the tarmac. You see tennis court tarmac has to be by nature free draining and therefore it’s not compacted down as much as say a playground or roadway, and as such is much more fragile.
The order of play is to treat first to kill off the live moss, then clean it out using the appropriate system, then treat again to mop up the remaining moss and algae, and finally to colour coat in some new non slip paint to protect it for another few years.
All this tennis court maintenance work is done in house by our own trained technicians, and re lined using the latest laser technology.
For a free site visit and quote call 0121 747 9255, visit www.sweepfast.com or email sales@sweepfast.com
” Can I really clean the leaves, litter, other wind borne debris, bird poo!! from my tennis court in 10 minutes?”
Simply put the answer is certainly yes you can, and a 2 metre wide Cleansweep from Sweepfast is all you’ll need. These amazingly simple but effective tools have been around for years and still customers are finding out just how good they are. Initially they were intended to collect litter from asphalt tennis courts, which they do equally well, but it soon became apparent that they were perfect for sand filled artificial grass courts too, and now they’re finding a use on the old clay courts but also on the new generation of artificial clay courts to clean up the artificial clay and re-distribute it evenly.
As with all Aerosweep products they work so simply, you provide the forward motion and everything on the surface of the tennis court is lifted up by the fingers and dropped onto the grid. From here the sand will fall through and be worked back into the court, whilst the larger debris is trapped on the top and stays there until emptied.
In fact because it’s 2 Metres wide it will only take 8 or 9 passes to cover the entire court once, and as it only weighs around 6kg, and you pull it not push it, it really is very easy to use.
The Cleansweep Artificial Grass Cleaning Tool
To empty you simply shake it off onto a sheet or in the gateway and 10 mins later when you’re completely finished, shovel it up into a wheelbarrow and that’s it done!!
All the teams at Sweepfast use these tools in the regular day to day maintenance of tennis courts, and always carry one in the van, but they also find them useful when putting new sand back in after a refurb.
But there is only one way to see just how good these tools are, and that is try it for yourself, visit www.sweepfast.com and type cleansweep in the search bar, or email us on sales@sweepfast.com, or if in doubt call 0121 747 9255 and a technician will talk through whether it’s suitable for you tennis court.
But hurry up, the leaves are starting to fall………………………
With the huge amount of artificial grass surfaces now in use, and with more being installed every month an in house maintenance regime coupled with a professional contractor maintenance plan has never been so important. I know this works out as an unexpected expense but there really is no other option, and bad advice from poor quality contractors can be even worse. I’ll give you one recent example.
The recent spell of wet weather has brought home once again just how important maintaining artificial sports surfaces is. On a recent visit to a customer where the maintenance regime had simply been regular drag brushing. What is worrying is that more recently a “contractor” had advised that power brushing off the top surface and replacing a tiny amount of old sand with new would “revitalise” the pitch. But within one month the pitch had started to retain water once again, now rendering the facility totally unsuitable for use.
The only procedure to discover exactly what is going on beneath the surface is to take samples of the infill then return them to the warehouse and set about processing them. So after giving them this advice and at the request of the customer we took 9 samples from locations all over the surface, from high use areas to areas where there was very little foot fall. These have now been sampled and analysed and the results indicated that the contamination levels are way in excess of the standards for safe play, and the continuous free draining of the surface.
The conclusion of my report is going to indicate a spend in excess of £10,000.00 now to put things right, where if they had been given the correct information and acted on it the pitch would have still been playable now, with an annual spend of less than £2,000.00 and no loss of play and earnings.
It’s so frustrating in this industry that there are so much bad advice from convincing salesmen leading to spending money for the wrong reasons, with only one consequence, the customer has to eventually pay twice.
This is why at Sweepfast we pride ourselves in taking care to visit every site to assess its requirements whether it’s a small private tennis court or a university multi sports complex. We take every measure to ensure the advice we give is based on truth and not on assumptions, and we know then that we can rest easy.
For professional synthetic sports surface advise and service from the first site visit to completion of the works call 0121 747 9255 visit www.sweepfast.com or email sales@sweepfast.com
Here at Sweepfast I get asked that many times, and while I can understand the reasoning that “no money spent on maintenance and deep cleaning is money saved, and the pitch still looks ok” even after 6 or 7 years, but one look at the dust, dirt and broken fibres removed , then another at the now revitalised pitch swiftly changes their opinion.
A 3g pitch will still look green after many years because of the nature of them, with only a small amount of sand in the base and half filled with rubber granules the fibres are left to fold over with foot fall. However underneath this green surface compaction and contamination still go on unseen. Add to this the fact that over time the rubber infill gets moved about creating dangerous high and low spots, you can begin to understand how uneconomic and unsafe it is to leave an artificial grass football pitch untouched for years.
I was recently with Sean Campbell Sports Ground Specialists in Northern Ireland at Mid Ulster Sports Arena, where they have a variety of pitches some of which are 3G and some have been down for up to 9 years with only drag brushing as their maintenance program. And to be fair the pitches looked reasonable except for the wear especially at the seams. And Sean wants to put into place a proper maintenance plan using the SKU machines from Hoerger that we would provide. Our brief was to prove the benefits of a deep clean service to all involved in the Mid Ulster Sports Arena.
We used the Hoerger SKU 1500 mounted on a Massey Ferguson 15/47 tractor and spent the day deep cleaning the main pitch with excellent results, as always. The contamination and broken fibre removed will assist with water drainage after heavy rain, the fine dust removed is airborne contamination, moss spores, dead algae and dead skin etc etc will have the benefit of cleansing the pitch, the rubber crumb will have now been de compacted giving a much better feel to the surface under foot for the players and it will also have been leveled out creating a more even surface, finally all the fibres will have been set upright again as at the original installation, the benefits of this are that there will now have been an increase in the depth of the pitch thus extending its life span.
To sum up the pitch now has an extended life, especially if this process is set in place as a regular service, it is also clean and free of broken fibre, dust, dead skin, dead moss and algae, and has regained the original feel as it had when installed.
