The hidden cost of getting wetpour wrong
What should the surface still be doing years after installation?
Day One versus Year Five: why appearance isn’t performance, why surfaces fail, and why replacement costs dwarf material savings.
The Science of Performance
Evidence, guidance and specification support for wetpour and sports surfaces that still perform years after installation — from the team that has manufactured Rosehill TPV® in Yorkshire since 1988.
A surface can look perfect at handover and still be the wrong specification.
Most specifications describe what a surface must be on the day it is installed. But playgrounds, sports courts and splash parks are used — and judged — for a decade or more. Colour stability, retained elasticity, granule security and impact performance only reveal themselves after years of UV, heat, weather and footfall.
This hub collects the evidence and guidance behind that argument: what long-life surfaces have in common, what a specification should ask for, and how to assess the answers you get back.
Explored in depth through our articles, guides and CPD sessions — all built on the same evidence base, delivered in full as a CPD session.
What should the surface still be doing years after installation?
Day One versus Year Five: why appearance isn’t performance, why surfaces fail, and why replacement costs dwarf material savings.
Whose material is actually being supplied?
TPV, EPDM and SBR are material categories, not products. What “or equivalent” should really mean — and the questions that reveal the difference.
How will granule, binder and application perform together?
The client walks on the finished composite. Binder, thickness, installation and environment decide whether a good material becomes a good surface.
Tsuen Wan Plaza, Hong Kong — installed 2021; subtropical heat, monsoon rain and typhoon seasons, year after year.
The same surface, photographed from the same spot, five years apart. This is what a specification should protect — not how the surface looked at handover, but what it is still doing years later.
Developed with our technical team and published through the campaign. Each piece ends with one next step: a CPD or a specification review.
CPD · Specification Support
Want the session details first? See what a Science of Performance CPD covers and book →
The complete Science of Performance presentation — the evidence base behind everything on this page — is delivered privately as a CPD session for architects, landscape architects, consultants, local authorities and play companies.
Working on a live project? Choose “specification review” and tell us about it — we’ll review the surfacing specification with you, project-specifically.