[00:00:00] Joe Freudenberg: so you've been at this for 40 years and so not only do you have experience on the job site, but you are a true court builder, and that's, really your background.
[00:00:08] But one thing that I really wanna drill in today with you is, on the front end, as guys are coming in as surfacing contractors and installers, it's really important for them to know, okay, what am I putting this color on and how do I help my customer, kind of shore up that their subsurface is good, or maybe they're hiring me to surface the court, but they're asking me, Hey, do you know any good asphalt contractors?
[00:00:34] There are tons of asphalt contractors, but it's a whole nother thing to build courts and to pave courts. today's topic, and this episode, I want you to really nerd out on, okay, what is the difference between, just hiring a paving company, having them do the same thing they would do for a parking lot, versus getting really specific.
[00:00:52] Trying to adhere to these, American Sport Builder Association specs. So let's just dive into the process of all things asphalt for courts,
[00:01:00] What's up guys? Welcome to the Court Pro Podcast where we encourage and equip you with everything you need to start and grow a thriving court business to fuel your family's vision. Every episode you'll hear interviews, trainings, and conversations revolving around the hard and soft skills of athletic court construction and surfacing, plus some bonus tips on how to grow as a father as you run your business.
[00:01:24] My name's Joe, and I'm a husband and father of four kids. I was able to bring in $300,000 of revenue in year. One of my surfacing business and over $1 million in year two. This business has blessed my family tremendously, and I'm super excited to help you guys. Other hardworking dads create a true economic engine for your own family.
[00:01:44] If you'd like to learn more about what entering into a season of court business coaching might look like for you, visit corp pro coaching.com, see more details about our exclusive content. And community of fellow court installers across the country. Let's jump into today's episode.
[00:02:01] Joe Freudenberg: What's up guys? I am here with my good friend Luke Lessard. I've known Luke for a handful of years now, and you know, I always talk about this unfair advantage that I had with this other court builder in our city who really took me under his wing, let me work with him for a season. but then he turned me loose and I was on my own, and I needed, I still needed a lot of help.
[00:02:23] Luke here has been, you know, more than anybody by far. my biggest cheerleader, my coach, and I'm super excited to introduce him to you guys. He's an ex contractor. I'll let Luke, I'll let you kind of introduce yourself, a little bit of your background, but I, as we started the podcast and cranking out these videos, I was like, if the one guy I know I need to talk to and introduce everybody to is Luke.
[00:02:47] So thanks for being here. And yeah, give us a little intro on Luke.
[00:02:51] Luc Lessard: All right, thanks Joe. I've been in the industry since 1981. So, I started out there with a shovel, mixing and shoveling and working, from the bottom up, became a contractor, worked, specifically only in the recreational area. So tennis courts, running tracks, basketball courts, pickleball courts were really not in that market back then.
[00:03:13] they've only evolved probably within the last 10 years, my forte in construction, was in, fencing. we did site work, asphalt, concrete net posts, and lots of color. I'm familiar with synthetic grasses, a variety of different MAT systems. they've worked all over the United States, down south, in the middle, you know, in, in the, Midwest, east coast.
[00:03:38] I haven't done much work on the West coast. I have a feeling it's very similar to what, Florida's like
[00:03:45] Joe Freudenberg: Yes,
[00:03:46] Luc Lessard: humid.
[00:03:47] Joe Freudenberg: no doubt. Yeah. Well, so that's awesome Luke. And you know, for, for you, you've, so you've been at this for 40 years and so you not only ha do you have ex experience on the job site, you really know the difference. And this might be for another podcast, but you are a true court builder, and that's, that's really your background.
[00:04:05] So, you know, we talked to a lot of guys and I always encourage guys to think about starting out as court surfacers, before they try to take on, you know, general contracting a job, which you helped me with last year. You kind of helped me make that transition. But that's one thing that I really wanna drill in today with you.
[00:04:22] Is, you know, on the front end, as guys are coming in as surfacing contractors and installers, they really, it's really important for them to know, okay, what am I putting this color on and how do I help my customer, you know, kind of shore up that their subsurface is good, or maybe they're hiring me to surface the court, but they're asking me, Hey, do you know any good asphalt contractors?
[00:04:47] There are tons of asphalt contractors, but it's a whole nother thing to build courts and to pave courts. So, today's topic, and this episode, I really want to drill into, you know, what are, let's, we can really nerd out. I'm gonna ask all the questions, but I want you to really nerd out on, okay, what is the difference between, you know, just hiring a paving company, having them do the same thing they would do for a parking lot, versus getting really specific.
[00:05:15] Trying to really, you know, adhere to these, American Sport Builder Association specs. So tell us a little bit about your background with asphalt, and let's just dive into the process of all things asphalt for courts,
[00:05:28] Luc Lessard: Okay. I think first and foremost, asphalt is a very good surface because of the affordability. it's substantially cheaper than doing a concrete court. like a post tension concrete court is gonna run you probably, and again, you have to look at your markets depending on where it is.
[00:05:46] But a five inch slab. Post tension is gonna run you one 50 to 180, soup to nuts. I mean, from start to finish with coatings, standard coatings, no cushion, no anything.
[00:05:58] Joe Freudenberg: Yeah. Okay. Got it.
[00:05:59] Luc Lessard: So you go into more of an asphalt core. Um, well, let me back up a little bit. Concrete. If you go into a slab with rebar and expansion joints and, and Joe, those are always pains.
[00:06:11] The minute you get a sock cut in
[00:06:12] Joe Freudenberg: We will do a whole podcast on sock cuts and control joints.
[00:06:16] Luc Lessard: so, and that's an engineered flaw, right? So it's an engineered crack. It's supposed to control everything. Now you have to deal with all that. So again, that's not cheap. You go into asphalt, now you're cutting the price almost in half. So you're looking at, again, depending on your markets, you're going into Florida, Florida's only putting two inches of asphalt down on a court, four inches of gravel.
[00:06:39] you go into, the northeast, you go into the Midwest, above the Mason Dixon line, now we're talking 12 inches of gravel two inches of base and two inches of surface asphalt
[00:06:52] Joe Freudenberg: So why the difference?
[00:06:53] Luc Lessard: because up north you have the frost heaves, you have a lot of movement going on. the, the soils are slightly different as well. Typically, you know, Florida is, is tends to be either sandy or swampy. So, you're, you're not dealing with as you know, and I don't wanna say swampy, but it, it's the, the soil can be stabilized with their mixes.
[00:07:13] They have a lot of limestone, absorbs. A lot of that water solidifies and you don't need as, as thick of a coat. You don't see the cold, you don't see the frost heaves. You travel up north, probably Northern Virginia, up. You're starting to see, you know, more movement. So you might increase your base to six to eight inches of, of gravel.
[00:07:36] you come up into New England, you go up into, Wisconsin, Michigan, you're looking for 12 inches of base. You go up into Canada, you're probably looking 16, 18 inches of
[00:07:47] Joe Freudenberg: Goodness gracious.
[00:07:47] Luc Lessard: and you gotta pay attention because like in a lot of times you'll run into stone, okay?
[00:07:52] So that your aggregate, you gotta be careful with. You're not putting straight stone, you're putting a blend. you're a process to aggregate. Typically it has stone, dust and stone in it. that's a mix. And that solidifies you. You want it to drain, but you want it to pack. You're looking for a nice hard pack.
[00:08:09] Be very careful. You don't want to use a clay base. If you see, like, I know, in parts of Pennsylvania, Virginia. even in parts of Ohio, there's a lot of red clay. Well, red clay, when it's hard pan, it is hard as a rock. I mean, it is solid. Introduce water to it, into it, it becomes jello. You get movement, so you go to compact it, all of a sudden you have movement on the asphalt.
[00:08:34] Not good. You can't get the true compaction on that.
[00:08:38] Joe Freudenberg: Yeah, totally. Okay. So if I am a court surfacer and I'm trying to help my customer, right? so maybe they call me and you know, they're, you know, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm just getting started. I don't really do concrete or asphalt, but, you know, I do have some options that you could call these guys.
[00:08:55] Like, what am I as a surfacer looking for in an asphalt contractor to make sure that they're not just gonna treat it like it's another, you know, another driveway or another parking lot. what's the difference? What am I looking for in the contractor and what should how can I coach?
[00:09:10] Even if they're new, maybe it's like a great asphalt contractor who's trying to get a little bit more niched. they're tired of competing on every single parking lot in the city, and they're like, man, we wanna niche down into courts. Maybe how can I, as a surfacer, like coach them in what they need to, how they need to approach paving a court?
[00:09:28] Luc Lessard: the biggest focus is knowing the base. Okay. So make sure that your base has been graded properly. It's a 1% pitch. There's no such thing as crowning on any court whatsoever.
[00:09:38] Joe Freudenberg: Yeah, so talk about what crowning is,
[00:09:40] Luc Lessard: Crowning is typically where you would say, like, I'm gonna go with a tennis court only 'cause it's easier at the net it would be your zero point, and then what you'd have is you'd have it pitched both ways.
[00:09:51] Six inches. So 1% both ways. 'cause a, a court is one 20, so you'd do 60 feet, you know, and an inch and 10. Typically, if you were to do dial it into your laser, you're gonna be dialing, 0.8 3, 3 3 or 0.84 to get your pitch. Okay. You do not do it that way,
[00:10:10] Joe Freudenberg: we don't want the pad to do this. We want the pad to go in one direction all the
[00:10:14] Luc Lessard: a single plane directional plane.
[00:10:18] It, it's a pitched plane so that the plane has to go, it can be corner to corner, that's fine. Or, or end to end, side to side, whatever works. Now if you're doing, I typically like to run it the one 20 way only because I want the water to flow down. So,
[00:10:36] Joe Freudenberg: So longer distance.
[00:10:37] Luc Lessard: and you never, like, you don't want your pitch, you never pave across your pitch because that's where you might have a chance of having it be higher
[00:10:47] Joe Freudenberg: So we ran into that problem last year. So if you're, if you're pad is pitching one direction, you wanna make sure you're paving with the grade
[00:10:55] Luc Lessard: Yes.
[00:10:56] Joe Freudenberg: talk about seams,
[00:10:58] Luc Lessard: so seems you, when you, 'cause you're putting it down typically in two applications. your first application, you will run typically 10 foot passes your second application, you'll run twelves. 'cause you wanna scatter your seams. You don't want your seams to sit on top
[00:11:14] Joe Freudenberg: wanna put the same seam over the first one.
[00:11:17] Luc Lessard: Right. You never want that. First of all, you tend to be higher, you'll have a little bit of an edge. 'cause it's tough to get your seam all the way down. You know what I mean?
[00:11:25] Joe Freudenberg: sure.
[00:11:26] Luc Lessard: So you wanna make sure if you scatter it, you'll hide that first scene. Now you may run into like larger projects, like a battery of say like six quarts, where they'll want you to bask, you know, basket weave or crisscross.
[00:11:40] So they'll tell you the first application, go across the pitch, don't go with the pitch, and the second application go with the pitch.
[00:11:48] Joe Freudenberg: what's the advantage of basket weaving on a bigger pad like that?
[00:11:51] Luc Lessard: it's supposed to be stronger and hold the asphalt less cracking, less, movement of the pad.
[00:11:58] Joe Freudenberg: Right. But even if you're, even if you're gonna basket weave, it sounds like the second, the surface course you wanna make sure is running with the
[00:12:04] Luc Lessard: yes, absolutely it has to be running with the pitch.
[00:12:08] Joe Freudenberg: Yeah. That's great. Okay. so that's the, that's one thing. So, you know, if the, if a, if an As if I'm trying to consult an asphalt contractor, you know, what else can I tell 'em?
[00:12:20] Luc Lessard: You want them to know how to grade properly. One, you, they need to have a laser grader. if you set it up with a laser grader, and you can get the skids steer with the attachment, you can go old school and go string lines. We still see people doing that, and there's nothing wrong with that that works.
[00:12:35] But you, if you have your grade really good, you essentially go back with your paver. You set your two inch blocks, you drop your screen on it, feed your paver, and you can essentially just go right down the line and just run with, with what the grade is. There shouldn't be any low areas because if you're not playing with your screws on your paver, you're just going right down the line and it makes it nice, nice and clean.
[00:13:01] Joe Freudenberg: Well, tell me a little bit about, the asphalt itself. So like, one thing that we run into in the, on the surfacing side a lot is we get these, like, rust looking spots. It's like, whoa, we just painted this. And their customer's calling us like, Hey, why is there, why are these brown spots?
[00:13:17] It's like rust. Tell us a little bit about that and what's going on with the, the asphalt
[00:13:21] Luc Lessard: Okay. That's, that's pyre. And pyre is, it's typically an iron ore, that comes, it, it's usually in the stone. And that stone, as it starts getting water on it, it's gonna, you know, rust. I do wanna make a point of saying when your base coat, you can do standard asphalt. When you go to your finish, you want to ask your paver to do a virgin asphalt.
[00:13:47] You don't want any recycled asphalt materials in it. It's hard because EPA now has, a certain stipulation where you have to have a minimum of 5%. the Long Island, you know, it can be as high depending on the areas as high as 55, 60%
[00:14:04] Joe Freudenberg: They want you to recycle for the environment. Yeah.
[00:14:06] Luc Lessard: Yeah. So we're hoping that, you know, with that top layer, if you can ask for Virgin, if you don't, I mean, you always have to have a 30 day cure, No matter what. So I would suggest if, just give it the 30 days. Let it breathe. Let it bleed out.
[00:14:21] Joe Freudenberg: Can we get, can I ask you some questions about the curing? Because, you know, we're always trying to figure out, okay, we know that it's supposed to. We hear guys like you tell us, make sure it cures, make sure it cures what is actually chemically going on, and why are we waiting 30 days?
[00:14:36] 'cause you can walk on asphalt the next day. what's to stop us from actually surfacing it sooner
[00:14:41] Luc Lessard: you're letting it breathe, right? You're trying to get the oils out. You're trying to let all the gases out because the best thing that can happen for a court is to get a rainstorm that can really wash things. I mean, a heavy rain, and then some good hot weather to really pull everything out.
[00:14:58] Once you have that, if you've ever taken new asphalt, you take a bucket of water and you throw it on there, you'll see like,
[00:15:04] Joe Freudenberg: oil and water.
[00:15:05] Luc Lessard: pebbles, and you can see the color on it. Well, prox don't wanna bond to that, so they're likely, I mean, they will to some extent, but if it's heavy, you could get shatter cracking, or you could get delamination or blistering,
[00:15:18] Joe Freudenberg: yeah. We're putting water in our, in our acrylic paint. And we're putting, if those oils aren't, you know, haven't released and then been washed away, then yeah, you can have a real problem. So what is there, I know in the past I've been, it's been recommended to me to, like, actually if you, if you're in the middle of the summer, it might actually be a good idea to get some water, like introduce water to the pad.
[00:15:39] Luc Lessard: Yeah, a lot of times you can do that in two ways. a lot of people will get excited 'cause they really wanna push the project, so they'll power wash. a lot of other people will just toss sprinklers on there, in a variety of different areas. Let the water go on there.
[00:15:55] But then at the same time, they're looking for puddles, they're looking for low areas. So you can highlight an area, so then you can see what's going on.
[00:16:04] Joe Freudenberg: That's good. So you get to kind of double dip by throwing water on there. See where the low spots are and get the pad clean.
[00:16:10] Luc Lessard: Yep. The old school way. way back when, back in the eighties, we used to actually, believe it or not, we used to spread lime, with a spreader, like a lawn spreader. We used to spread lime on it and then wash it off, and that would pull out some of the oils out of it.
[00:16:26] Now it is, is it costly? Absolutely. is it guaranteed? Not necessarily. 'cause now you could be infecting your asphalt
[00:16:33] Joe Freudenberg: right.
[00:16:34] Luc Lessard: so you
[00:16:35] Joe Freudenberg: a little dicey. Yeah. Okay. Very cool. All right, so when you, I'm sure this has happened many times to you, but you know, what are some watch outs for contractors when they, when they go to look at an asphalt pad? Maybe, maybe they've been hired to just come in and do the surfacing.
[00:16:54] They had the, the surfacing con contractor had nothing to do with, had no communication with the paver. what are some watch outs when they walk out onto the court? What are some potential problems they could face as a surfacer? and yeah. What, yeah. Any, anything along those lines. What, what should they be looking at?
[00:17:11] that could cause problems for them as they start to surface the asphalt.
[00:17:15] Luc Lessard: Well, what you wanna look at is, I like going there after a rain. one is to see the puddles. Two is also to see the roller mark. Okay. So as the asphalt guys rolling, they might just be rolling fast, you know. So you'll start seeing roller marks, especially when the water, well, when you cover your quart, you're still going to see that because the acrylics are simply, they're not gonna, you know, hide anything.
[00:17:39] it's just coloring those watermarks. But it's also dangerous because those roller marks could leave heavy spots. And that's where you can, if, you know, with your squeegee, you can try to work it, but sometimes it'll, it'll pull there and that'll cause some issues. So you wanna be careful with roller mark.
[00:17:54] You wanna be careful to see, if you see cracking on a, on a new asphalt, you wanna look at that and you wanna go stand on it, see if it's spongy. you know, did they, is is the base suitable? Is it not? Is it, like for instance, one of the, the, if they've overcome, I, I know that people say you can't overact asphalt.
[00:18:15] That's not true. You can, you'll get these cracks and, and you'll be like, oh geez. They're like, you know, sometimes you can patch that, but you just wanna be aware of it and, and make. The owner, the end user aware, like, Hey, this is what's going on, but we want you to see what we're seeing, so make them aware of what's there.
[00:18:35] Joe Freudenberg: Yes. Now, if you go out to surface a court, you're all excited. You're like, I landed the job. The, oh yeah, they finally paved it. We're gonna get to go in 30 days. You go out there to check the work and there's, just. an unimaginable amount of low spots or the asphalt is, you know, the seams are terrible.
[00:18:54] how do you deal with that as a surfacer? I'm curious what your take is on this. If there's a lot of low spots that one temptation for a surfacer might be, Hey, here's a problem. I could maybe fix it.
[00:19:06] Luc Lessard: yep.
[00:19:07] Joe Freudenberg: So, and, and I've run it, I've done this.
[00:19:09] I've learned my lesson. You know what project I'm talking about.
[00:19:11] Luc Lessard: Yes, I do.
[00:19:12] Joe Freudenberg: And you, you go out there and you're like, okay, hey, like the customer's got a real problem. They're gonna have tons of standing water to where the, the, the acrylic's gonna bubble because just constantly sitting in water. So I need to get ahead of this, I need to offer a solution to them.
[00:19:28] I'm gonna go ahead and introduce a concrete patch to, you know, 50 spots or something like that. and, but then what happens if you just move the, you end up just moving those 50 spots to a slightly different spot and it pulls there. Like, how do, what do you do? Should you, should you attempt to help the customer by patching some of them?
[00:19:46] If you put it on the, if you try to put it back on the asphalt contractor, what does that look like? how would they even fix it apart from coming in and paving over it?
[00:19:57] Luc Lessard: Well, a lot of times they'll use infrared and they'll be able to do an infrared patch depending on how well the asphalt is.
[00:20:03] Joe Freudenberg: What is, what is an infrared patch?
[00:20:05] Luc Lessard: They come in there, it's essentially like a torch. It looks like a, I mean, it's not a torch, but it's like, it looks like a, a flat plate and it's got a flame underneath it.
[00:20:14] And what they do is they heat up the asphalt and they usually get a fine mix of asphalt. And what they'll do is they'll spread that on to try and, and, you know, rake it in and roll it and try to, they're reheating the asphalt, they're trying to rebind it all and, and, you know, fix those areas. how does it work?
[00:20:30] I think it's a 50 50 hit. Sometimes you'll get a really nice patch and they'll be able to get it, and other times it'll granulate it, it
[00:20:37] Joe Freudenberg: Well, yeah, that was our experience on some of these is it'll granulate and get real chunky, or they'll actually overfill
[00:20:44] Luc Lessard: Yeah.
[00:20:44] Joe Freudenberg: Now you've got a ridge over top.
[00:20:47] Luc Lessard: So, typically what we would do is we would make the, end user aware, like, hey. There are some areas we can do. We're not gonna remove these areas. we can't fix these areas. So what we're gonna do is the deeper ones, we're gonna greatly reduce the depth to under a nickel.
[00:21:05] The depth of a nickel, you know, sideways, us nickel, sideways, laying flat. and we're gonna meet the spec of USTA and A SBA. We're gonna meet their spec and it'll greatly reduce the puddle so that it dries faster and you can get, you
[00:21:20] Joe Freudenberg: So it's really important. Like I, I've learned to use language in my quotes, and even just interactions with the customer, that that phrase lessening the depth. We are not fixing, like, you really wanna make sure that you're not saying we're gonna fix the problem and make it completely smooth.
[00:21:34] You gotta be really careful not to shoot yourself in the foot with that.
[00:21:37] Luc Lessard: right. Exactly. we will greatly reduce the depth of, the affected area.
[00:21:42] Joe Freudenberg: Yes.
[00:21:43] Luc Lessard: that's worked well for me.
[00:21:45] Joe Freudenberg: That's awesome. We've got just a couple minutes left on this one, Luke. can we shift to concrete real quick? Can we talk about the difference between the two surfaces? with concrete, you've got a similar cure time where you already mentioned that it is more expensive.
[00:22:00] one of the pros of concrete is that it is stronger. it won't crumble. The type of cracking is gonna be a little bit more hairline as opposed to some of the alligator cracking that you see in asphalt. it is actually easier in a lot of ways to maintain.
[00:22:13] what would you say as far as acrylics on top of concrete? What are some of the things that we need to think about when we're surfacing a concrete court?
[00:22:21] Luc Lessard: First question, ask, is there a vapor barrier
[00:22:24] Joe Freudenberg: Always, that should be like on your t-shirt
[00:22:26] Luc Lessard: Yeah. Really business card. Here you go. Is there a vapor barrier? you know, that's the probably the most important thing. you know, our recommendation is a double six mil taped seams. we wanna make sure it's nice and tight.
[00:22:39] a 30 day cure medium to light broom finish. you know, and when it's doing, when we're looking at, post tension, post tension is by far one of the best ways to go. It's a bridge deck. It's never gonna go anywhere. You may get a little bit hair lines,
[00:22:53] Joe Freudenberg: That's the Cadillac of foundation.
[00:22:55] Luc Lessard: And, it is just an amazing all around court,
[00:22:58] Joe Freudenberg: Now there's really just a couple additional steps when you're surfacing a concrete court. So you really need an asset etch and you need a prime. we've been talking about this a lot this week actually. What is actually happening when you asset etch a concrete court?
[00:23:12] why do we do it? And what's actually happening that makes it better for coatings to adhere?
[00:23:17] Luc Lessard: The acid is really, removing the debris from the pores, so it's removing the dust, the debris from the pores themselves. So, by, acid etching and then washing the acid off. You know, if you notice, when you acid etch, you'll see bubbling
[00:23:32] Joe Freudenberg: Yeah.
[00:23:33] Luc Lessard: Yeah. It, it, it's like a cleaning.
[00:23:35] Cleaning. it's probably the easiest way to explain it. It's kind of cleaning. It's making you go take a soft broom. you don't have to have a super stiff broom. You can just use a regular broom, sweep it in there, and don't be afraid to apply it
[00:23:46] Joe Freudenberg: Yeah, I'd be Liberal with it.
[00:23:48] Luc Lessard: Yep. And then wash it off like I do 20 by 20 squares and, you know, that's how I like to do it. And then we wash it all off and make sure it's nice and clean. then that's the whole purpose behind the acid etching. Now, if you want to, you know, after you're done cleaning it, give it a, a couple days of nice warm temps.
[00:24:05] You know, you can get a, a moisture meter, or you can do my technique, which is, you know, a sandwich bag with duct tape around it. Give it 20 minutes in the sun. You'll be able to tell if you have condensation on that bag. It's not ready. If it's dry, it's ready.
[00:24:20] Joe Freudenberg: I get super nervous. I'll do the bag test and it might pass the bag test, but I always almost wait till the next day to put my primer down.
[00:24:26] Luc Lessard: is probably a good idea. and then like you said, okay, so you have your acid etching, you have your wash on the court, you have your primer, which you typically would do. you know, you're looking to get a good bond. You're looking to, get that primer into those pores so that it's secured.
[00:24:41] it's very important to know. That it's not, even though it's a good bonding and it's trying to stop the water from traveling. it's not a vapor barrier. So there's no such thing. I know there's people telling you that there's, vapor barrier, top side vapor
[00:24:55] Joe Freudenberg: Right,
[00:24:56] Luc Lessard: I don't believe that there's really such a thing.
[00:24:59] I think that they're acrylic adhesive promoters. They're promoters. they help promote the acrylics to it. But as far as, yeah, as far as stopping moisture from traveling, water's super strong. Hydrostatic pressure will push
[00:25:13] Joe Freudenberg: Yeah.
[00:25:15] Luc Lessard: And then you could just go to your standard coatings, you know, you go to your, but I will tell you this with concrete, the more coatings you put on top of it, the more likely you have to worry about, you know, because you're sealing that concrete off, the more likely you could
[00:25:30] Joe Freudenberg: Could get bubbling.
[00:25:32] Luc Lessard: Issues blistering and
[00:25:33] Joe Freudenberg: Right. You're trapping that in there. Yep. It's really good. Awesome, Luke. Well, man, we could go on and on about asphalt and concrete. I know you certainly could. and maybe we will, maybe we'll come back to another one, but this was great. Thank you so much. I don't know anybody better to consult on this.
[00:25:49] you've been super helpful. In fact. yeah, if there's anybody out there that, you know, has these questions, I know you'd be happy to help them.
[00:25:56] Luc Lessard: Oh, absolutely.
[00:25:57] Joe Freudenberg: Yeah. And can you tell us a little bit about, what you have going on? what's your day to day right now? we, work with you all the time, use your products.
[00:26:05] but give us a quick pitch on what you've got going on.
[00:26:07] Luc Lessard: All right. So, I work for Nira Industries. I run our sports division, our recreational division, which is called dyflex Sports Surfacing, where we have coatings, designed for recreational facilities and surfaces. right now what's really exciting is,
[00:26:21] we're working on Grizzly court, which is a MAT system, a free floating mat system designed specifically for problematic courts. So a court that doesn't have a vapor barrier underneath it, I got a solution for you. and cracks. I mean, we've got solutions, rooftops, we've got solutions.
[00:26:38] So that's what we're doing.
[00:26:40] Joe Freudenberg: Yeah, so if you guys can't catch that, it's Luke is the director of Dyflex, which is the sports surfacing division of Nira. And yeah, we'll put all that in the show notes and in the description under this video. but thanks again, Luke. We'll do another one on Matt Systems here soon.
[00:26:54] Luc Lessard: Sounds great. Thanks Joe. Take care.
[00:26:56] Joe Freudenberg: Thanks.
