Rubber Surfacing Answers

Across Durham Region, a pool deck, patio, step, driveway or garage floor in rubber surfacing tends to land between $8 and $16 a square foot when it goes over what is already there. Playgrounds cost more, roughly $15 to $30 a square foot and occasionally beyond, since so much more rubber goes into the depth. Small jobs come with a minimum, and heavy prep like grinding away an old sealer pushes the number up. Treat those figures as a range only; the quote you receive once we have visited, at no charge, is the real one, and it shows the inches and the square feet behind it.

Yes, and it outlasts the concrete it sits on. Being flexible and bonded, rubber surfacing shrugs off the freeze-thaw cycling that pops the top off a slab near the lake, and water sinks through it instead of forming ice on top. Salt does nothing to it, and a shovel with a plastic blade slides across it without catching.

The colour in rubber surfacing lives in the EPDM granule, dyed right through, so a scuff never exposes a different shade underneath. Grey, tan, brown, blue, green and red are the standard range, and they blend into flecks or lay up into patterns. For a garage or a gym, plain black SBR is the budget choice. Pale shades that sit in full sun should go down with the aliphatic binder, which will not yellow.

On pool decks, patios, walkways, steps and driveways, rubber surfacing usually measures three-eighths of an inch, sometimes half. Garages and gyms go a bit heavier, topping out near three-quarters of an inch beneath the weights. A playground is in another league entirely: an inch and a half at the shallow end, past four inches where the tallest equipment stands. The quote spells the depth out in inches, so any other quote can be checked against it.

Given warm, dry weather, rubber surfacing sets up overnight. Walking on it the next day is fine; cars, furniture, machines and horses hold off for roughly 48 to 72 hours. What spoils a cure is rain, so we keep an eye on the forecast coming off the lake and never pour into a wet day.

Plain concrete, stamped concrete, asphalt, interlocking pavers, wood decking, compacted stone, even an old rubber pour: rubber surfacing bonds to any of them. What it asks of the base is to be solid, clean, dry and carrying no oil, paint or sealer, and getting it there is what the prep day is about. Nothing gets demolished, because whatever is there now is the base.

Hairline and static cracks disappear under rubber surfacing, since the layer flexes and the crack itself is finished moving. A live crack is another matter. They are common on the clay south of the 401, where the ground heaves every winter, and one of those gets cut open and filled before any rubber surfacing goes over it, because rubber lying over a crack cannot keep the slab beneath it from moving. At the site visit you will hear which sort yours is.

A hose, a broom and, when it needs it, a mild soap are all rubber surfacing asks for; solvents go after the binder, so keep them away. In winter, clear it with a shovel that has a plastic edge, and do not worry about salt. Every few years a fresh binder coat rolled over the top brings it back and adds years, though how long it lasts overall was mostly decided by how well the base was prepped on day one.

How deep playground rubber surfacing goes depends on how far a child could drop from each piece of equipment, so a toddler structure close to the ground may only call for an inch and a half while a tall climber with a deck calls for several inches. That depth is built from a black SBR cushion with a coloured EPDM cap troweled over it. The quote gives the depth at every piece of equipment.

Roughly 10 degrees and climbing, a dry slab and no rain until the cure is over are what rubber surfacing needs, which gives Oshawa a season from late April through October, trimmed a little in the north end above Taunton Road. Most homes are done inside a day or two. The spring fills up early, so a winter site visit gets the job on the calendar first.