Hybrid renovations
While hybrid systems answer the problem of pitches that need to take more games and maintain their quality, the secondary question of maintaining and renovating these surfaces is still being developed.
Renovation on an uneven hybrid carpet reveals high spots in some areas making renovation inherently more challenging on hybrid surfaces as damaging the carpet is both timely and costly in repairs.
Innovations into the turfcare market are leading the way in removing organic matter without causing damage to the synthetic fibres, but refining the renovation process to get the most from these machines has led Redexim to the Scarivator, particularly on hybrid carpet systems.
The name of the machines comes from scarification and renovation. Put those two together, and you have the Scarivator, a machine that’s purpose is to loosen and lift organic material, teasing it out from the synthetic fibres on hybrid surfaces to allow safe removal while levelling the surface as it goes. Crucially, it achieves this without causing any damage to the synthetic fibres because it doesn’t use a rotor. Instead, spring tines and lateral movement that overlaps do all the work, leaving nothing for the synthetic fibre to wrap around and cause damage.
Primarily, this machine is aimed at a gap in the contractor sector because they are the ones carrying out the work, and the involvement of contractors from the inception of the Scarivator through to testing has led to the machine that is now available.
Renovation on a no infill synthetic touch line. Grass clippings build up from cutting equipment on the main surface, algae then accumulates within making it slippery to walk on.
Unique to the hybrid maintenance market
Redexim Product Specialist, Rhys Evans, has been closely involved in the development and testing of the machine and explains what makes the Scarivator different from anything else currently on the market.
“The unique feature on the Scarivator is the way that the tines are etching into the surface,” Rhys explains.
“Renovations are not carried out by end users; they’re carried out by contractors. What contractors find is once they’ve stripped the surface off, they’re left with a hard, almost concrete pad, and the hybrid surfaces are just inherently difficult and challenging to maintain because they can be like concrete.”
“So, they found they could take a spring rake like a Verti-Rake or similar across, but it’s not aggressive enough to get into the layer that’s been left behind. It needs some sort of rotavator to get in there, but you can’t use a rotavator because it’s way too aggressive.”
Before/after the Scarivator during renovations on a SIS hybrid stitched system at Chelsea F.C, Kingsmeadow Stadium.
“Having this machine is something that is needed in that process. What does that do? It fluffs up the bed, so you’ve got a nice tilth to put a top dressing, or a root zone to put down into.”
“If you take other machines on the market that contractors use, these tend to have rotors. Because the rotor spins, synthetic fibres can get caught around the rotor and be pulled from the surface, which can mean costly repairs.”
“With our machine, the movement is only 50 millimetres on either side. It is unlikely, but if a fibre was to get caught around the tine, it’s only going 50 millimetres, so you’re not going to damage the synthetic fibre or the carpet that’s below.”
A machine years in the making
An interesting aspect of the Scarivator is its origin. While this machine is new to the market, an iteration of it has been used at Premier Pitches for several years, as developed by Carl Pass.
Before use of the Scarivator on an uneven hybrid carpet system that had a rotary machine pass over but, was getting too close to the carpet backing, risking damage to the carpet backing due to the unevenness of the surface.
Premier Pitches is a leading contractor for hybrid pitches and successfully used and refined its own version of this machine before working with Redexim to develop the Scarivator.
As part of the development stage, Redexim gave Premier Pitches a unit to use for an entire season, and Team Leader at Premier Pitches, Mick Taylor, was the man to put it through its paces.
“The machine’s main purpose is to be used during renovations to loosen any surface debris, and the Scarivator does exactly that,” Mick explains. “Typically, we use it after the first pass of the Koro to loosen the profile, then you don’t have to be as aggressive on the second pass.”
“For me, the main point is understanding the machine and knowing how it works before you put it on a hybrid system. Every pitch is constructed slightly differently with varying materials, so it’s important to gain experience in knowing when and how it should be used.”
Close up of the Scarivators results on a hybrid stitched system, digging down reveals its true effectiveness.
“We avoided using it on pitches with an unstable root zone, but it does exactly what you would want it to do on stable pitches. As a company, we’ve used a version of it for years and got a good system going with it, so I think other people will see a benefit.”
More than a renovation tool
Although the Scarivator has a strong origin, Redexim wanted to test the machine thoroughly. Different versions have been trialled in the US, The Netherlands, various Premier League clubs and UK-based contractors.
This process informed changes to the tine shape, the addition of a PTO stand and, most importantly, a change to the gearing to give more crossover between the front and back tines without sacrificing forward speed.
South Wales Sports Grounds (SWSG), a family-run company celebrating sixty years in business at the end of 2024, used the opportunity to test the Scarivator in other areas.
After both the Turf-Stripper and the Scarivator made their first pass on a hybrid stitched system.
Initially, SWSG Contracts Manager, Matt Dennison, took the machine to use on Swansea City A.F.C’s hybrid carpet pitch and soon found other valuable uses for it.
“At the time, we hadn’t renovated a hybrid carpet, so we decided against using any of the traditional machinery,” Matt explains. “Redexim gave us the Scarivator to use, and the first point of call was, can we renovate a carpet hybrid with this, and what does it do? Truth be told, you can’t do it with just that bit of kit, but it certainly does help.”
“We were using it on every pass, so we had a Maredo Scarifier and a Turf Tidy from Redexim that would come behind to clean up the trash that the Maredo left. We utilised the Scarivator after that, and what it did well was just loosen the head of the grass plant off to make life easier for the scarifiers to remove the organic matter and the grass leaf from the pitch.”
“We then took it to the Swansea City Stadium, where they have a stitched hybrid. They had a concert that year, and where the stage had been, they had really buried a lot of the stitched yarn and pressed it in.”
Left: Hybrid carpet system showing the results after a single pass with the Scarivator.
Right: Hybrid stitched system showing the results.
“Usually, we’d use the traditional spring tine rotor rake, but what we actually found is the Scarivator did a much nicer job of bringing that yarn back up. So, it had already been renovated, and we’d taken it back down; all the grass plant was out, but we used the Scarivator to go over the pitch very quickly, and what used to probably take two or three passes with the rotary rake, the Scarivator did in one.”
Having tried it on the stitched hybrid, Matt continued to test its capabilities on synthetic turf. While not its primary purpose, the machine has successfully been tested on synthetic no-fill run-off areas at Man City to drag organic material to the surface. In Matt’s case, he was aiming to tackle compaction.
“I like to try kit on stuff that it wasn’t actually designed for, so we put it on an artificial pitch that was quite severely compacted. I wanted to see whether or not it would de-compact with the way the steel tines oscillate, and it did work, and it worked relatively quickly.”
“I’m not sure it did as good of a job as other bits of kit that Redexim have, like the Extreme Clean, but it’s one of those things, especially as a contractor, if you’re going to invest in a bit of equipment, you always want it to do more than one job.”
“So, over the three months we had it, we were trying to find what those other jobs could be as well as providing feedback on the machine’s performance.”
The culmination of testing and development has resulted in a machine featuring two horizontal beams equipped with angled spring tines to work into the surface at adjustable depths of up to 35mm (1.38”) and a 2.13m (83.9”) working width.
The Scarivator has so far lived up to its claims, proving itself a versatile and effective tool for hybrid pitch renovations. In time, it has the potential to become as common as using a turf stripper and a staple of the hybrid renovation process.
