Max Bowl
Humble, TX

Project Strategy

How do you transform an old-school 1982 bowling alley into a high-concept entertainment center with glow-in-the-dark bowling, an expansive arcade, multi-level laser tag and ropes course, and a full-service bar and grill that gives families and companies a thrilling, action-packed destination venue? With exacting standards and laser focus on the details, we installed 2,200 ft2 of Daltile ceramic flooring, 706 yd2 of J&J carpet, 21 Roppe stair treads and risers, and 13,000 ft2 of Tandus Centiva luxury vinyl tile in 12 colors and four styles—some requiring precision water-jet cutting to meet the client’s exact design specifications. With an intricate design and complex blueprint, the installation was akin to carefully piecing together a giant flooring puzzle—all while hurdling obstacles that included a challenging schedule that minimized business disruption and extreme substrate and leveling issues between the original slab and new construction. Persistence, hard work and creative problem solving paid off handsomely: The new flooring at MaxBowl is an eye-popping marriage of form and function that smoothly guides customers through each entertainment area while beckoning them on to the next—helping elevate family-friendly fun and adventure to the max!

Unique Installation Challenge Strategy

Installing multiple flooring types to match intricate blueprints is nothing new for our seasoned flooring experts, but this project presented a combination of unique challenges few on our team had seen before. Confidence was high going into the project that our excellent mix of products would make a stunning presentation, but installing the many Centiva patterns required by the bowling pin design to carry the entertainment theme through the center was a challenge in itself. The greatest installation challenge—leveling the subfloor—became apparent before the first carpet was unrolled or tile unpacked. While some leveling is common, the project’s first phase on the original slab, installed after midnight to reduce business interruption, uncovered a ¾-inch-deep, 3,000 ft2 recess that had to first be leveled with Ardex subfloor products. The second phase, 11,000 ft2 of adjacent new construction, revealed a bigger problem: When a concrete wall between old and new construction was knocked down for the expansion, an even larger gap between the two slabs was revealed. The new slab was a full 2 inches lower—and it took 890 bags of Ardex substrate and leveling material to get the job done right, more than six times the original estimate!