Grass Tennis Court Maintenance: Interactive Monthly Workload Planner


This maintenance planner provides the groundsman / turf manager with a detailed planning tool for estimating the monthly work required to maintain a grass tennis court to a defined standard, for example using Performance Quality Standards, for a full year.

For those who just want a quick estimate of the total yearly workload they should refer to the Interactive Workload Estimator, which is much quicker to complete but does not provide the detail given here.

For an example of a completed work planner see the Grass Tennis Court Maintenance Calendar.

Changes to inputs can be easily undertaken to see the impact this will have on the hours for maintaining a court. This is ideal for 'what if' scenarios and is particularly useful if the maintenance programme is to be adjusted to allow for increased mowing frequency, or other tasks, to vary the level of quality that is expected from a court.

The experience of the main person responsible for maintaining a court will be invaluable in helping to determine the maintenance input required, as this person will be the one who has the local knowledge on the existing soil conditions and the effect this has on maintenance tasks.

The estimated time to complete an operation is included in column 2, 'Hours', however, this can be simply overwritten to put your own figures in if this is required.

Notes for completion of the interactive planner

  1. If you put your own hourly cost into the box on the first row, then the planner will calculate the total costs for your situation.
  2. The values that can be entered into column 2, 'Hours' are restricted to 5 characters (e.g. 10.33, or 1.755).
  3. The values that can be entered into the monthly frequency columns are restricted to 3 characters.
  4. All the other boxes, that are totals, will be calculated automatically once the [Calculate] button is pressed.
  5. Do not add a leading zero, i.e. 0, to any whole numbers, i.e. 5 should not be represented as 05, otherwise erroneous results may be produced.
  6. Optional boxes, initially set with a value of 0, are available so that you can put in Material, Machinery and other costs, for example apportioned administrative costs; However, if they are not filled in then this does not affect the planner.

Three Miscellaneous boxes have been included to allow for any specific requirements not covered in the rest of the table.

Once the [Calculate] button is pressed the planner will take a few seconds, depending upon the speed of your computer, to calculate all the required values in the boxes.

Staff / Contract Cost per Hour, £
  Enter the estimated number of times that each task is to be carried out during the stated month  
Maintenance task   Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total - Freq  
Hours 5 5 4 5 5 4 5 5 4 5 5 4 52 wks Total - Hours
Mow ~12 - 15mm
Mow ~8 - 12mm
Mow ~6 - 8mm
Aerate:slit tine
Aerate:solid tine
Aerate:sarel spike
Initial setting out
Erect posts/nets
Overmark court
Dismantle post
Top-dress:autumn
Overseed
Returf base ends
Fertilise
Turf tonic
Light roll
Medium roll
Scarification
Verticutting
Dragbrush/Switch
Irrigation
Repair work
Fungicide:contact
Selective herbicide
Mosskiller
Other pesticide
Wetting agent
Misc' 1
Misc' 2
Misc' 3
Total hours input per month  
Total maintenance hours
Total staff cost: £
Material costs:£
Machinery costs:£
Other costs:£
Total maintenance cost:£