astroturf maintenance Archives

Cleaning Artificial Grass

Posted on 16th July 2013 by Sweepfast

“Why should I pay to clean our artificial grass football pitch?”

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.

Extracting Sand From Astroturf

Posted on 25th February 2013 by Sweepfast

How do you extract the sand infill from an Astroturf pitch? The most successful way to extract contaminated sand and the associated contamination from a sand filled synthetic grass pitch, or tennis courts is using a high pressure injection system to displace it to the surface for collection. Sweepfast has developed the Hydrofast System which utilises high pressure water delivered at a precisely controlled height from the surface to lift out the material and also to wash the fibres of the synthetic grass clean as it goes. The system is built around an Avant telehandler which travels across the surface at around 0.5 km/hr lifting out the material as it goes and leaving it in a line to be collected by the following machinery.

The results can be very dramatic as demonstrated with the Sweepfast Infill Contamination Test Kit, with a total contamination ratio of around 70.49% on an extremely badly maintained pitch we have reduced that down to 1.38% in just 5 days, see the two images below for examples.

Before:-

And After:-

To see more of this impressive system visit www.sweepfast.com or call 0121 747 9255 for a free site visit, assessment and quote.

Cleansweep

Posted on 20th February 2013 by Sweepfast

Maintaining an artificial grass tennis court is no easy feat, and it’s so easy to ignore the leaves etc etc until they decay and can’t be seen any more. But do this at your peril because this WILL BE the kiss of death for your artificial grass pitch or tennis court. If left to decay on the surface the leaf and tree litter will cause the infill material to become clogged, causing more problems as the water refuses to drain through. Black sludge patches rapidly begin to appear as the water which by now is lying on the surface brings this decaying matter to the top, and suddenly you will notice the results of your neglect. When this begins to happen there is only one way forward and that is a full refurbishment, where the sand infill is completely removed and replaced with new. This produces great results and you’re left with a virtually new surface that drains and plays as good as the day it was first installed.

But take this back a step, if the surface was maintained in the first instance this procedure would probably not be needed for many years, instead of after just a few. Brushing with a stiff broom was the traditional way to keep an artificial grass surface looking good, but brushing dead leaves across a synthetic grass tennis court is not good practice and will simply grind in the debris and push it into the sand infill. So what is needed is something light, easy to use but still collects the leaves as it goes.
Enter the Cleansweep synthetic grass cleaning mat.

The Cleansweep Artificial Grass Maintenance Machine

This device with a little forward motion provided by a reasonable walking pace will sift through the sand infill and separate it from the debris, working it back in as it goes. The debris can be shaken off every few passes and the court will be swept clean in about 10 mins. If done every time before play then the risk of walking the leaf litter into the surface will be almost completely removed, and with no noise created or additional cost input from fuel it rapidly becomes an economical piece of equipment despite its initially high purchase cost. There’s simply nothing else on the market that does what this device can and they are always in stock in the Sweepfast Midlands Depot.

Astroturf Cleaning

Posted on 16th January 2013 by Sweepfast

New Products

It’s not everyday a new product comes into this market that customers have been crying out for, but that’s just what’s happened with the introduction, by Sweepfast, of the ATC1400.

Interim cleans or Powersweeps on full sized 3G pitches are effectively done with the ATC2000 machine, and a full sized pitch takes about 2 hours with one man and a small tractor or quad bike to complete. But the problem comes when you try and get this service into 5 aside 3G pitches, with their smaller area and tighter access the width of a standard ATC2000 makes it difficult to manouver between pitches and getting into the corners is nigh on impossible. However with the introduction of the ATC1400 the reduced width and lighter chassis makes 5 aside pitch regular maintenance a breeze.

This new machine like its bigger variant will de-compact, clean and level up the infill on a 3G pitch all in one pass, the only input needed is a small tractor or quad bike to pull it at a reasonable pace (10-20 km/hr).

The rubber infill granules are lifted onto the reciprocating sieve by the forward motion provided by a tractor or quad, large particles of debris and fibre are retained and the cleaned rubber falls back onto the pitch.

48 x 3mm infinitely adjustable spring tines set behind the sieve relieve the compaction at every pass, these can be set to penetrate the upper most layer where the compaction occurs (10-18mm) and an adjustable specially designed brush is set behind that to leave the infill level and even, making for a safer cleaner playing surface.

The machine complete only weighs in at 46 kg so moving it around isn’t such a back breaking job, yet it’s still heavy enough to be solidly built. It’s constructed from powder coated aluminium, stainless steel and bright aluminium. It measures up at:

1,510 mm Deep
1,500 mm Wide
290 mm High
46 kg Weight

Call or email via the website via this link

Sweepfast Sports Surface Maintenance & Machinery

Tennis Court Cleaning

Posted on 21st May 2012 by Sweepfast

With the summer promising to arrive sometime soon, and thoughts of playing tennis again firmly set in your mind, you walk out into the garden with raquet in hand only to find your beautiful artificial grass tennis court covered in leaves, blossom etc etc. With the only tools at hand being a large brush you start the arduous task of brushing the court, some 550 sq m of it, to enable play to take place. The after effects of brushing artificial grass surfaces look ok, but close inspection will reveal a lot of broken up leaf litter and other debris pressed into the infill, which is less than desirable and will cause long term problems encouraging moss growth and eventually leading to drainage failure leading to a tennis court looking a little like this:

Artificial Grass Tennis Court Covered In Moss

This court was particularly bad with moss up to 25mm deep over most of the surface, it certainly looked as though it needed mowing!!

A few days later it looked like this:

Artificial Grass Tennis Court With Moss Removed

After play had resumed on it all it needed was a sand top up and it was back to as new condition, but the most important question from the customer was how do I prevent this from happening again? The answer to this in essence is quite simple but it does need pressing home, MAINTENANCE!! If the facility, which had cost a lot of money to install in the first place, had been maintained from the outset this situation would never have arisen, and the golden rule for maintaining all outdoor sports surfaces is Cleanliness. The first weapon for the groundsperson or owner is the Cleansweep cleaning mat, with this simple yet effective tool you will be able to clean and remove litter from an artificial grass tennis court in just a few minutes. The Cleansweep will sweep, remove leaf litter, twigs, blossom, seeds and other biological debris from the surface, then at the same time it is working back in the sand that has been brought to the top of the surface leaving behind a clean even tennis court. All this in one simple machine makes regular maintenance of sand filled artificial grass tennis courts so easy it becomes a pleasurable regular task with satisfying end results.

The next procedure to put in place is to treat the surface regularly for moss control, with the restrictions now on most chemicals that were effective on moss and algae some of the surface cleaner chemicals are suitable to apply regularly without causing environmental issues. One such product is Algon, this product works on contact with the plant and the process starts rapidly with noticeable effects visible within a couple of days. Once the kill has been completed and the moss is brown it can be brushed from the surface, this can be done by hand but again it is an arduous task, and a solution is to use a powerbrush. The simplest and cheapest of these is the Texas Handysweep 600TG, this will rapidly powersweep dead moss from the surface leaving it clear for another application of moss killer.

With all this in place the last course of action is to book in a deep clean service once a year during the driest period to remove debris, dead moss and broken fibre from deep down in the carpet where brushing with the Cleansweep and the Handysweep can’t reach. This process is carried out with a Hoerger SKU machine either driven by a tractor or mounted on an Avant machine and driven hydraulically.

As long as these procedures are followed strictly and carried out under the right conditions the artificial grass tennis court should stay in pristine condition for many to come.

Artificial Grass Cleaning

Posted on 18th May 201227th February 2018 by Sweepfast

When William Blake penned the phrase “in England’s green and pleasant land” I don’t think he had an old Astroturf tennis court or synthetic grass hockey pitch. After, in some cases, just a few years they can turn into a nightmare for the owner, with brown sludge in patches all over and dead moss deeply rooted into the sand infill. For the owner of such a facility it must seem as if all is lost, as every effort to brush the surface clean produces no noticeable effect with the sludge appearing again at the first heavy downpour, of which there has been more than just a few this Spring. Then when they do get a break in the weather and succeed in killing off the moss and algae it all re appears with, wait for it, yes even more rain!! I can imagine the feeling of despair as the owner of a beautiful country house looks over the garden in the morning, from their kitchen window, and sees the tennis court like a blott on the landscape.

Sweepfast have had more than just a few such situations to deal with, and I’m sure more than once has a potential customer been scornful that nothing can be done and that replacement is the only way forward. This is brought on by installation companies only interested in selling a new surface and condemning the old one to the grave, or the skip!! And there’s another valid point to be made here, as we’re all doing our best to minimize landfill and re-cycle, why is it that old surfaces like these are ripped up and sent to the tip when with a bit of effort and money they can be back in service again in almost as new. The thing with many private synthetic grass tennis courts and a lot of synthetic grass hockey pitches is that as long as the seams are intact they will show very little signs of wear, and the only issue is the infill which is contaminated and refuses to allow any rain water to pass through.

Sweepfast have developed this Hydrofast System of refurbishing these surfaces using high pressure water which is fed into a machine that travels up and down the court or pitch very slowly driving out the infill, and contamination and removing it from the surface and even washing the fibres clean as it goes leaving behind an almost as new tennis court or hockey pitch. When the job is just half way through and the customer can see the comparison between the old and the new the difference is just staggering, but the best of all is the look on the owners face when their beautiful artificial grass sports facility handed back looking pristine, is extremely rewarding.

Once completed these sand filled surfaces can be easily maintained by a little effort every week or every day during Autumn and Spring, with such tools as the Cleansweep which will enable the user to clean a tennis court of litter, leaves, blossom, twigs etc etc in just 10 minutes, then use of a either a hand pulled weighted dragbrush or for the larger surfaces a towed weighted dragbrush, then regular moss and algae treatment with a suitable chemical will go a long way to keeping it free of contamination for years to come. Then once yearly it must be deep cleaned by a contractor using such machinery as the Hoerger SKU to remove deeply embedded debris and lift the fibres upright again.

Sweepfast can be contacted on 0121 747 9255 for a free site visit to discuss a rescue package to restore your facility.

See the gallery below for examples of the whole process:

Cleaning Football Pitches

Posted on 13th February 2012 by Sweepfast

Cleaning 3G Football Pitches.

With most top level football clubs now feeling the need for 3G training pitch to train on when the weather’s poor, regular maintenance is essential to retain the playing characteristics it had when installed. Maintenance has never been high on the agenda for any synthetic grass facility in the sporting sector and the football clubs are no exception. But once the procedure is in place the benefits are immense, even the most inexperienced player can’t ignore the benefits from an even clean surface, more feel under foot and no smell!!! The smell from an indoor pitch can make you feel breathless and this can be remedied by treating with a santising product such as RBT247 Sanitiser, applied once then again within one week will kill off the bacteria that produces the odour and all that is needed is regular treatment to maintain this level.

The infill needs to be regularly cleaned and de compacted with an ATC2000 or ATC1400 surface cleaner, this will keep the infill free from larger debris such as studs, bottle tops, broken plastic, pens, grips cigarette ends etc etc, it also keeps the infill loose and even, avoiding the risks from torn ligaments, twisted ankles etc etc associated with uneven surfaces.

Once or twice yearly depending on the usage the pitch will need to be deep cleaned with a Hoerger SKU machine to lift out the infill make it free from dust introduced by the players from skin, from foot transfer and from blowing in through the open doors. It will also separate out the more coarse debris and store this safely on board. then it will re introduce this back into the pitch and work it back into the fibres. The SKU machine will also, once this has been done allow the operator to work the machine right down to the bottom of the carpet and relieve the compaction deeper down. The finished result is a pitch that looks, feels and smells clean.

Hoerger SKU1500 3G Pitch Cleaning Machine

For more details on this and any other service follow the link below: