Case Histories (Real-World Solutions)

Winter Meets Its Match

rubber flooring

Syracuse’s harsh winter weather has met its match at Syracuse University with the installation of rubber flooring rubber flooring in residential entrance areas, corridors, common spaces, and stairwells.

Syracuse University in New York has its hands full educating 21,000 students each year. With 70 percent of those students living on campus in 22 residence halls, the university’s housing team has a lot to contend with, including comfort, safety, and upkeep.

Two big challenges? The brutal Syracuse winters and the constant, high-volume traffic within dorm buildings. The housing team needed a floor that could stand up to both. They selected nora® by Interface® rubber flooring to cover dorm entrance areas, corridors, common spaces, and stairwells. Over the past seven years, the floor has outperformed expectations. “The versatility of rubber lends itself to many different spaces,” says Robert J. Spagnoletti, manager of maintenance, “and it performs in all of them, functionally and aesthetically.”

The floor’s easy maintenance regimen played a key role in the selection of rubber—no wax or coating necessary. “That was a main driving factor,” says Spagnoletti. “We found a good product that we don’t have to wax and strip.” Since installation, the floor has delivered on performance—the Syracuse maintenance team’s toughest obstacle.

“Our biggest challenge is the winters and dealing with the snow and salt, keeping the salt down outside, but minimizing the trailing effect inside,” Spagnoletti shares. The nora rubber flooring has performed so efficiently that the maintenance team is using spare tiles as walk-off pads for elevators during the winter.

“We’re getting strong support from all of our directors. They see the areas where nora has been installed and are happy with how it’s worked,” Spagnoletti says.

www.interface.com

This article originally appeared in the College Planning & Management September 2019 issue of Spaces4Learning.

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