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06-21-2021

The Top 3 Mistakes to Avoid When Cleaning an Artificial Turf Field

When a community or district makes the investment to install a synthetic turf field, it becomes a staple for activities and events, and relied heavily upon to stand up to wear and tear. While they’re built to withstand long hours of action throughout the years, it’s essential that the field continues to look and behave accordingly. In order to achieve that, it’s necessary to clean your artificial turf field on a consistent basis. 

As imperative as it is to ensure your field is clean, it’s also vital that the routine grooming is conducted properly. Three of the most common cleaning mistakes we run into are:

Incorrect height of brush to fibers 

Regular grooming of your synthetic turf field is imperative to ensure it continues to look good and perform the best for its lifespan. Brushing your field can be a simple process to add into your maintenance schedule, however, one mistake we’ve seen from cleaning an artificial turf field is not setting the brush to the correct height. Either it’s been too high and isn’t properly brushing, or it’s too low and it has been displacing infill throughout the field. Our recommendation is to ensure the brush is impacting the top quarter inch of fibers. You can see the brush in action and follow steps for proper grooming at our how-to video here

Not removing debris

Brushing your artificial turf field can provide numerous benefits, including extending the life of your field and performing well. Brushing also collects debris from the surface to keep it clear of some common trash or other items. Removing debris, either with the brush or actively picking up larger items, ensures the safety of your athletes and your field. Allowing debris build-up on your synthetic turf could potentially lead to injuries to participants during activity or even work its way into the profile of your field, impacting drainage or causing other issues. 

Not removing temporary paint properly

One of the benefits of a synthetic turf field is the ability to have sports lines inlaid with the rest of the field. However, different sporting events and other activities might require you to add temporary painted lines or logos to your field. It’s important that you’re using the proper paint for synthetic turf (we recommend Pioneer) to protect it but it’s even more critical for your field’s aesthetics and performance that you’re cleaning the paint off correctly.

Neglecting to properly remove the paint or paint build-up over time can cause a number of issues. The main concern for leaving the paint is it can lead to clumped infill in that area, which can cause the spot to become hard and lead to high gmax numbers. Remediation for an issue like this is to cut out the area of turf and replace it. Be sure to check out our blog on proper painting techniques with additional tips on removing the paint correctly. 

Do you or your team need a refresher on how to properly clean your field? Maybe you haven’t had an annual deep cleaning conducted on the turf in a while? Our Motz365 Turf Care Experts can schedule a maintenance training to walk through the best care steps or get your field on the calendar to receive our deep clean visit. Get in touch with us!

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