So is the rubber roofing a no-no over carpet?
I have an industrial-syle very flat carpet. Not poof or frill at all. I am thinking it may give the floor a little softeness, instad of putting the roofing just over concrete.
Any thoughts?

Hi. Today we set the sub floor with foam and 2 by 4's. We purchased three 10 by 50 foot rolls of the rubber roofing material. I am a bit concerned as we have some wrinkles in the flooring. Do these come out? We did not fasten or secure the flooring down, we just rolled it out. How do we tape the rubber roofing material? It really needs some securing and I don't know what to do it or how to do it. We have the black and it is really dirty. What would you recommend we clean it with?
Please help!!!!

I know we were talking about what to put over the flooring, but has anyone tried using laminate wood floors. That seems like it would have decent give and they claim it is very tough.

I just pulled up my rubber roofing material on my floor. I tried it for 2 months, but it just stuck too much!! It is good for little kids. They don't get hurt when they fall. It was very clean as far as no black spots on tights and shoes. But, we do tap and I just did not like it for tap!! Our advanced kids did not like it! Wings and other steps that required a little sliding were not possible. You could do them, but they were awkward and sloppy. I wish it would have worked!! The price was right! We do not do pointe in that room, but I bet it would have been OK for that. I now have tile that I put in a couple of years ago. It is black from the tap shoes and the black powder from the taps gets on the little one's clothes. It's not ideal, but I think I will have to stick with it for awhile. It costs a lot to get it cleaned, and then it gets too slippery and it ends up looking bad in about 2 weeks anyway!

Your floor is the most important thing for a dancer, especially young dancers. Don't go cheap on the floor, its worth every penny you pay. We only use hardwood flooring over a sleeper subfloor. For our area is less expensive than the marly or Stage Step. Great on the knees for Ballet, great movement for Jazz, and great sound for tap. Maybe you legs are hurting now becuase they got so use to danceing on concrete and now feeling the ache switching to wood.

I am building my own, but not finished yet, looking at several ballet flooring website, the material is foam, fiber, and pvc vinyl covering, so:
1. I buy some puzzle foam, like for the children room, attach it together, put some tape,
2. and I am going to glue the foams to the fiber, or you can use plywood
3. cover it with some glue to pvc vinyl covering, or marley type covering
It's your dance floor.

Hello,
Well it's been 3 months and our floor is really great! We built a sub floor with 2 by 4's and plywood. We also used some foam that you would lay underneath a hardwood floor. It was cut into strips and set under the 2 by 4's. We then rolled out the floor material and used gorrilla black tape found at home depot to tape it down. The trick is pulling out the wrinkles. We pulled the floor and used wood sticks and fastened them down. Then we can pull it again if needed. The hardest and most frustrating part was cleaning the material. We found that mop and glow on your hands and knees works wonderfully! This is the only cleaner that we will use. We use the floor for every form of dance and it rocks! The kids sit on it without any black marks on bottoms and our taps are really clean on it too! I know that this is a wonderful and cheap material. We finished a 30 by 40 full room and will do another one soon!

Hello,
Well it's been 3 months and our floor is really great! We built a sub floor with 2 by 4's and plywood. We also used some foam that you would lay underneath a hardwood floor. It was cut into strips and set under the 2 by 4's. We then rolled out the floor material and used gorrilla black tape found at home depot to tape it down. The trick is pulling out the wrinkles. We pulled the floor and used wood sticks and fastened them down. Then we can pull it again if needed. The hardest and most frustrating part was cleaning the material. We found that mop and glow on your hands and knees works wonderfully! This is the only cleaner that we will use. We use the floor for every form of dance and it rocks! The kids sit on it without any black marks on bottoms and our taps are really clean on it too! I know that this is a wonderful and cheap material. We finished a 30 by 40 full room and will do another one soon!

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Just called it is 10.50 per 4 X 8 sheet

molly peach if you have a sample of this floor would you mind sending a two inch piece for me to look at. I have a 3000 square foot dance area that needs a new floor and very limited funds to buy with. I think your photos were terrific and helped me decide this is the route to go. Thank you for sharing all this information with us. please e-mail me at westdancers@aol.com

I am just reading through all the postings for this- new to the site, sorry if I am behind! I am doing a studio for personal use, for Irish dancing. Does anyone have experience with Irish on either the PVC shower pan liner or the roofing material? Which one is going to be better! I can't afford to ship rosco Arabesque, which was my original idea.

hi am opening my own studio and all I have right now is a cncrete floor. how do I go about making sure the floor is sprung? can i just roll the shoer liner on top? what do i do to make it sprung under the liner.

i bought the pvc shower pan liner tonight from lowes. it's 40 mil and dark grey with writing on one side.
i bought a 5 by 8 sheet and i am going to play on it this week.
if all goes well i will use it. it was 4.93 per linear foot and it is 5 feet across.
it looks exactly the same as the matlay sample i brought with me.

well, after playing on it, some kids liked it and some don't...i personally think it needs to be a little heavier. the thinner it is the harder it is to get wrinkles out to lay flat and not pull when you turn on it...this was shower pan liner...
if i can find the rubber roofing stuff i will try that next

I too am looking into the PVC liner for my flooring. I know the rubber roofing comes in bigger rolls but I read where people use rubber roofing in ponds and it leaches chemicals after awhile. Has anyone noticed a smell or check for chemicals in the rubber roofing which may prove to be hazardous? I am leaning toward the pvc for this reason and just wanted to know if anyone else was aware of any chemicals used in the making of rubber roofing?

I just installed the rubber roofing about a month ago. It does have a pretty strong rubber smell to it at first but no longer smells. I wouldn't recommend getting it. It is ok but it wrinkles up and is very hard to turn on. I am going to save up for a different floor which is frustrating because I spent a lot of money on it. I would just get a "real" dance floor to begin with instead of cutting corners.

there is a difference b/t rubber roofing and pvc roofing...
you want pvc, not rubber. one is rubber, the other is vinyl.
i have just discovered this myself.

I am a student at a school which has brand-new hardwood floors. Unfortunately, pointe shoes will scuff and ruin them, but it cost over 10,000 dollars to cover the studio with marley. Would this stuff hold up well for an advanced pointe class? Is it slippery?

Thanks so much.

I think anyone contemplating using the pvc for flooring should go buy a piece. I bought about a 4X9 piece and put in down in the studio to test. I had my teachers put their strongest tappers on the piece to see what they thought. It does not shift even without anything sticking it down. It twist very little when turning on the ball of your foot. The only complaint and it was minimal was from my tap teacher regarding wings. The students have to become stronger in their steps but that isn't such a bad thing. I just thought buying a piece, testing it myself was the best way to go before investing the money. I think you could lay the factory cut edges together and not have to even worry about securing seams. I am going to cover 1800 feet with it. It is going to run me about $1300. A local plumber supply house has 6 x100 foot rolls for 475.00 I will be using 2 100 foot rolls and one 50 foot roll for the entire area. At my old building I had laminate flooring and could not keep the black tap residue off my dancers. They would come out of class looking worse than football players. Go buy a piece....cost me $50. It was a good investment.

In the process of building a new studio from scratch. Sprung floors are sooo expensive! How can I build my subfloor at an affordable rate? Then after that should I apply this vinyl?

Thanks!

I own a studio and just put pvc vinyl floors in over 1200 sq is cost me about $1200.00 with a little left over. I have used through my summer classes and it is a little more difficult to turn than say hardwood but it will make the dancers stronger. My neice who came to visit is used to hardwood flooring and she absolutely loves the pvc. It does smell when you first put it down but only for a few weeks. I work in a silicone/rubber chemical plant and had one of our toxicologist check into pvc vinyl and he said it will not be harmfull

I am sold on the PVC floor. We have used the sample piece for a week now with my strongest tappers pounding away. It has held up except for light colored scuff marks. I am unable to pay huge dollars for the professional flooring and feel this is very comparable. I also appreciate my smallest dancers not slipping around so much in their beginner taps. This is a plus about the floor.

I hope all of you the best with the flooring issues. This site has been a tremendous help and a special thanks to MOllYPEACH who brought my attention to this product to begin with.

Thank you so much!!!

ok, I now own the rubber roof floor and so far it is great but what should I clean it with. We have had it for one week and it still has a powder film on it. It leaves a sparlkly residue on skin & clothes. Is this powder supposed to be there. If not how do we clean it away. thanks