How did Hydraway revolutionize the state of play for a competitive Baton Rouge volleyball complex?
The Dream of a High-End Sports Complex
Though the Laguna Beach Volleyball Complex was already one of the most popular competitive volleyball tournament locations in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, drainage was beginning to be a problem.
Co-owner Tim Tonguis’s explanation of the issue makes it clear that the conditions were more than a problem, they were unacceptable. “Whenever we’d get a good rain we’d have to run out there to dig a series of trenches to facilitate drainage, and, even then, our players were left playing in a sandy soup.”
There are countless drainage products on the market today, and Tonguis took months researching the various conventional drainage options available. The most common solution, perforated pipe systems, represented a decades-old technology that has a number of issues that would, at best, only temporarily fix their issues.
Perforated pipe systems also required high design, installation, and construction budgets. One issue with a conventional perforated pipe is that it exhibits what is known as “coil memory.” The pipe, when laid out into trenches during installation, will curl up at the ends and make installation more difficult. This curl needs to be corrected before gravel can be poured over the system.
Slow Drainage
Perforated pipe drainage systems inherently drain slower than the Hydraway system in two different ways. First, water is unable to quickly flow into the system. Sure, with mild rain this isn’t a massive issue, but with torrential rain that Baton Rouge experiences this will cause standing water on the surface and even underground near the pipes themselves. Second, water doesn’t rapidly drain through perforated pipe systems meaning that even the water that gets into the pipes is slow to evacuate.
Particularly for sandy volleyball courts, this excess water can have disastrous effects due to erosion. Not only can this create the “sandy soup” that makes play almost impossible, but it can also cause extensive damage to the court. The work and expense required to replace the sand essentially mean that new, effective drainage can pay for itself.
Clogging
Particularly in sandy environments, the sand will begin to invade the pipe system over time. This slows down the already poor-performing pipes to a crawl and necessitates eventual repair and/or replacement. Tonguis and his partner, Joey Keener, were constantly digging new trenches to clear excess water, and new drainage pipes that would require the same thing were a complete non-starter.
The Hydraway 2000 System
With design and installation consultation services and our cutting-edge Hydraway 2000 strip drain system, we were able to address each of Tonguis’s and Keener’s concerns.
The Hydraway system offers a flow rate that is 7-25x greater than other conventional drain systems. This means that even during the most intense Louisiana rainstorms, water could be evacuated from the volleyball courts quickly with little worry about erosion.
Because Hydraway’s needle-punctured fabric exterior is designed specifically to resist clogging, the Hydraway system eliminated the worry that they would need to go in and dig new trenches in the future.
Not only is Hydraway’s strip drain system substantially more effective overall, but it actually involved a lower installation cost than traditional systems. Installation is as simple as digging a trench, laying Hydraway down, and filling with a layer of sand.
Result
The entire project took about two weeks to complete and made the Laguna Beach complex an ideal facility to host competitive volleyball events in the Baton Rouge area. Hydraway even had a local distributor in the Baton Rouge area that made the process even easier. With distributors around the world, this is becoming the norm.
“The proof is in the photos,” Tonguis said. “I have before and after pictures of the Laguna Beach Complex. The difference is amazing.”
Competitive volleyball is growing quickly in the Baton Rouge area, and the Laguna Beach Complex, with its six lighted courts, is becoming the facility of choice. Don’t hesitate to reach out to learn more and see how Hydraway can offer the same benefits at your athletic facility.
