24 SportsTurf | May 2014 www.sportsturfonline.com
Facility & Operations | By Mary Helen Sprecher
N
othing lasts forever. Including, unfor-
tunately, your synthetic turf field. And
that field, which has remained cheerfully
green and bright through wins, losses,
sun and rain, is now showing its age.
It hardly seems fair. But if it helps any, you're not the
only one going through this.
"A lot of fields are now coming up on their end-of-life,"
says Zach Burns of the Motz Group in Cincinnati, OH.
The first generation of synthetic fields, installed approx-
imately a decade ago (give or take a few years), is showing
its age. Field builders, and those who work with sports
facilities, say the symptoms are easily recognizable.
"The fibers start to degrade," notes Darren Gill of
Field Turf in Montreal, Canada. "You'll notice a 'hair-
ing' of the fibers and they will start to break. You'll start
walking off the field with broken fibers on your shoes.
The infill also hardens."
According to John Schedler of AirFieldturf in
Spokane Valley, WA field owners can walk the field and
find definitive signs of wear.
"Areas of wear typically are between the hash marks
and on the sidelines of a football field where there is the
most use or foot traffic and around the goal mouth and
corner kicks on a soccer field. Baseball and softball are
different but typically you'll see the highest wear in the
SynTheTic FieldS: end-OF-liFe iSSueS:
how do you evaluate an older field?
What's the next step?
Beginning of
life. All photos
courtesy of The
Motz Corporation,
Cincinnati, OH
