Alright, let me walk you through this little project I tackled recently. It involved putting down some flooring for practice, specifically for volleyball, but not just any flooring.

I needed something I could potentially move later, wasn’t looking for a permanent installation like you’d do in a house. So, I started looking into portable wooden flooring options. There’s quite a bit out there, but I kept seeing mentions of stuff suitable for sports.

What caught my eye was this specific type – they often called it engineer board flooring. Now, I’m no wood expert, but from what I gathered, it’s basically layers of wood composite stuck together, not solid hardwood planks. Supposedly more stable with temperature changes and maybe a bit cheaper, which sounded good to me.

The key part for my purpose, playing some light volleyball on it, was the backing. The tiles I ended up getting had a built-in rubber underlayment. This was important. I figured it would give a bit of shock absorption – easier on the joints when moving around or landing, you know? Plus, it helps stop the whole thing sliding about on the concrete floor I was putting it over.

So, I ordered enough to cover the area I had in mind. It arrived stacked on a pallet, quite heavy. First job was just hauling the boxes into the space. Then came the prep. Had to clear everything out, sweep the floor meticulously. You don’t want grit underneath messing things up.

Laying it down was pretty straightforward, actually. These things were designed to interlock, kind of like big, heavy puzzle pieces. You just line up the edges and push them together. Sometimes needed a bit of a tap with a rubber mallet, but mostly they clicked in place. Took me a good afternoon to get it all down, making sure the rows were straight and the joints were tight.

Once it was all laid out, I walked on it, bounced a ball a few times. Felt pretty solid. Definitely different from concrete or regular thin mats. The engineer board surface was smooth enough, seemed durable. And you could feel that slight give from the rubber backing. It wasn’t like a professional sprung floor, don’t get me wrong, but for a portable setup, it felt decent for casual volleyball practice, drills, that sort of thing.

Taking it apart? Well, it’s designed to be portable wooden flooring, so yeah, you can unlock the pieces. But it’s not something I’d want to do every week. It takes effort to install and uninstall. So, “portable” means it can be moved, not that it’s effortless.

Overall, pretty pleased with how it turned out. It serves the purpose I wanted it for. That combination of the engineer board top and the rubber base seems like a practical solution if you need a temporary, decent surface for something like light volleyball practice without doing a full-blown permanent install.