Frequently Asked Questions
Basketball
No. There is a difference between commercial goals built and designed for public, unsupervised play application and residential goals designed and built for your backyard. Any goal that you can purchase from your local big box sporting goods store will NOT be suitable for a public park or HOA type application.
42"x72". Regulation backboards are tempered glass but there are several materials that are commonly used for outdoor application including, but not limited to, powder coated steel and fiberglass. Smaller boards range from 36”x54” to 36x60” to 42”x60”.
The biggest disadvantage is the potential for an increase in injury. If you put an easily hand-crank height adjustable goal in an HOA setting it affords anyone the opportunity to raise and importantly lower the rim height. Kids will be kids. Under skilled kids will lower the rim height to dunk and hang on the rim. Ultimately kids will let go of the rim at the wrong time and land on their shoulder, resulting in more trips to the ER with broken collar bones. It is typically recommended that any goal intended for a public setting is FIXED height. Institutional Sports Equipment has goals designed to affix the extension arm at any height you want so you can set one goal at a lower height for smaller players, but it would require several adults and tools to change it. That makes it safer and still affords your group the ability to raise it to 10' if you have a weekend tournament or like.
A height adjuster is a component that goes between your existing wall or ceiling structure and the backboard. The backboard and rim come off, the height adjuster gets bolted on, then the backboard and rim get bolted to the height adjuster. When the height adjuster is engaged the entire backboard and rim rise or lower. The lowest height is 8'.
Volleyball
The playing components of our systems, net, tensioners, antenna, post padding, are the same. The difference is in the material used for the vertical posts. The least costly is steel but those posts are heavy to move, so heavy that we install a transport wheel to make it easier. The most common and most suitable is aluminum. Light enough to easily lift and reasonably priced. On the high end is carbon fiber. Lighter still than aluminum but very costly. Also to note, competition volleyball systems afford men’s and women’s competition volleyball net height only. A recreational volleyball system often affords 42” tennis net height which now allows the system to be used for pickleball.
Padding
The industry standard for protective gymnasium wall padding has been 2" high density foam glued to a 7/16" OSB backboard. All of that is wrapped in 14 oz vinyl. A 70" piece of foam vertically centered on a 72" piece of OSB leaves 1" of the OSB above and below the foam, creating the top and bottom mounting lips. Everything, including the mounting lips are covered in vinyl so ultimately no foam or OSB is exposed in the finished product.
No. Quality stage and corner pads are built with the 90deg angle built into the pad. The foam is beveled to create a 90deg angle and the vinyl is sewn to hold that shape, so the pad forms the apex of the edge.
Yes. Institutional Sports Equipment can print anything you want. Adding text is easy. For graphics and logos, we need a 300 dpi (dots per inch) high resolution vector file. With that type of file, we can resize and change colors without losing resolution. Typically, most illustrators provide their clients with a variety of file types. If you have printed your graphic on anything before you likely have it. If you don’t, Institutional Sports Equipment can create one for you. Vector files can easily be purchased online and we can add text on this end.
This varies and ultimately should be confirmed with your local Fire Marshal. Generally, it is ok to pad exit doors so long as nothing interferes with the operation of the mechanism that opens the door, be that a knob or some type of crash bar.
Yes. Institutional Sports Equipment does need to build the pads for outdoor use, though. Gym pads built for indoor use are different from those intended for outdoor use. For outdoor pads, we use weather-treated plywood for the backboards so the wood doesn't swell when it gets wet. We also use 18-oz UV-rated vinyl to cover everything.
Yes, Institutional Sports Equipment gym pads are ideal for this purpose. They create a safe environment for individuals in distress, giving the room a small gym feel rather than an institutional look. Institutional Sports Equipment can use softer color options like gray, sky blue, or Champion blue, and we can also pad the floor with 2-inch thick folding floor pads for added comfort and safety
Soccer
A regulation size soccer goal is 24' wide x 8' tall. Obviously, that is a huge area for a 7-year-old to cover so the soccer industry has designed smaller goals for smaller, younger kids. As the kids get older and bigger, their age group will move up to slightly larger goals. Check with your local soccer administrators to see what goal size is best for your facility. Typical goals are regulation 24"x8", 21'x7', 18.5'x6.5', and 12'x6.5'.
Tip and Roll Bleachers
Institutional Sports Equipment allows 18 inches per person on a bleacher plank. A 15-foot (180-inch) seat plank accommodates 10 people, so a 3-row system will seat 30, and a 4-row system will seat 40. The maximum seating capacity is on a 4-row, 21-foot system, which seats up to 56 people.
General
The short answer is no. Remember you get what you pay for. Commercial, school, and public recreation centers are different from your basement. More aggressive play applications require equipment designed for that level of play. Always check the warranty. Warranties are direct indicators of how confident the manufacturer is in the durability of the product.
This depends on and is worth clarifying. Most of our equipment is delivered via a freight carrier. Freight carriers are NOT responsible for unloading your shipment. Unloading and inspecting the equipment upon delivery is the responsibility of the receiver. All tracking and carrier information is provided when your shipment ships and receiving instructions are clarified in advance.