Home builders who call us for the first time often say something like, "I've never put in a bowling alley before. How does this work? What do I need to know?"
This page is a detailed response to that frequent conversation. Below, we've laid out the basic steps and milestones involved in a typical private bowling alley project, and tried to explain what to expect when you hire Fusion Bowling.
The first step is to design a great home bowling alley. To do that, go read Fusion Bowling's Design Guide. Also you can get free PDF drawings and an Autocad file from our Downloads page.
Once you have some preliminary floor plans, send them to us for review and comment. We'll be happy to do a video call where we can look at the plans together in real time.
The idea is to make the construction drawings as perfect as possible, while catching any necessary changes as early as possible. Once the drawings become more finalized, send us all the relevant sheets (architectural, structural, electrical, RCPs, elevations, finishes, etc) for another round of review and comments.
Scary story: Every year, Fusion Bowling is introduced to a project that is already fully designed, permitted, under construction, and contains fatal flaws that, either cost a fortune to correct, or make the bowling alley infeasible!
Design consultation with Fusion Bowling is free, so take advantage!
After you've browsed our Pricing page, and are ready to receive a proposal and make the first payment, email us the following information:
Our proposal is a dynamic, web-based document, which allows you to click on which upgrades you want (if any), and the total price will recalculate automatically. Then, simply "click to sign".
After signing, you'll receive our W-9 form and insurance certificate for your records, along with your first invoice, and a Brunswick acknowledgement form (another easy "click to sign" document).
Pay 50% within 30 days of the proposal date. If no payment is received within 30 days, the proposal could become invalid, and would need to be updated and reissued. The first payment:
See our Color Selection page for more details. Schedule a complementary video call where we can share the computer screen to look at photos and ideas together. Depending on which upgrades are chosen, one or more decisions listed below may be needed...
The required lead time to get the equipment ordered, manufactured, and ready to ship is about six months. Installation happens after HVAC is functioning, so work backwards from that point in your construction schedule, and add a two or three extra months to be safe. Equipment will be ordered after all of the following have occurred:
Scary story: Every year, Fusion Bowling has a customer that does 2 out of the 3 tasks listed above right away, but waits a long time to do 1 out of the 3, and then receives his bowling alley too late!
Fusion Bowling does on-site pre-installation visits with the general contractor and electrician to confirm dimensions, check the location of the curtain wall, confirm how the equipment will enter the building, and reiterate to the electrician what is needed.
The first site visit needs to occur during the electrical rough-in phase, but before any work has started in the bowling room. Keep us apprised of your construction progress, and give us a few weeks notice to arrange travel.
Scary story: Every year, there's at least one builder who contacts Fusion Bowling to schedule a pre-install visit. We fly across the country, get a rental car and hotel, arrive at the construction site, and, alas, the builder or the electrician is a no-show, missing out on important insights!
BEFORE: The permanent HVAC system must be up and running, maintaining 72º, before the bowling alley can be installed. It's also strongly encouraged that all painting, light fixtures, permanent power meter, and ceiling finishes are complete before the bowling alley gets installed in order to mitigate the risk of damage from other trades and construction dust.
AFTER: Flooring, however, must be installed after the bowling alley (to cover the gap around the bowling alley and to allow the flooring guy to float up any low spots in the slab to ensure a flush flooring transition.
Think of the bowling alley almost like furniture. It includes a lot of electronics, fine machinery, touchscreens, etc — things you wouldn't want exposed to a lot of construction activity. Ideally, the bowling alley subcontractor is the second-to-last trade in the room, with only the flooring trade coming afterward.
The general contractor should request a 30-day window in which they'd like the bowling alley to be installed. Keep Fusion Bowling up-to-date, and notify us if it looks like the 30-day window needs to shift.
Only after the permanent HVAC system is confirmed up and running can we nail down an exact start date. Therefore, the 30-window needs to begin at least a week or two after the HVAC system starts working.
The general contractor can ensure a smooth bowling alley installation by knowing what to expect and by doing some prep work in the weeks and days leading up to the bowling alley installation:
The installation crew will live in a nearby hotel, and will continue working straight through Saturdays and Sundays. For typical projects, the approximate duration of the initial on-site construction work is as follows:
A 48% payment is due when the bowling alley is installed.
The general contractor is strongly encouraged to cover the pinsetter machines in plastic and to install a temporary flooring protection product over the bowling lanes and approach.
Scary story: If a bowling lane panel is damaged, a replacement panel could have a lead time of up to 6 months. Then a crew of two will have to fly to the construction site, rent a telehandler, wait on the truck (delivery window could be several days), replace the damaged panel, and after all that... the color might not match exactly. Rinse and repeat. As you can imagine, one scratch from a careless worker could quickly snowball into a $25,000 logistical nightmare. This is another reason why as much construction work as possible should be completed before the bowling alley is installed.
The initial installation work makes the project "substantially complete", meaning there will likely be a few minor punch-out tasks remaining due to, for example:
Fusion Bowling will follow up to schedule a mutually convenient return visit to complete the punch-out items (if any) and to do training with the homeowner. The punch-out and training visit usually involves a crew of two and takes one to three days.
The final payment of 2% is due when the bowling alley is 100% complete.
Fusion Bowling provides the initial sale and installation of the bowling equipment only. The ongoing maintenance, adjustments, cleaning, etc are provided by others. A list of bowling service companies can be found on the Maintenance Help page. Fusion Bowling also keeps a list of individual bowling alley technicians who've expressed an interest in earning some extra cash on the side by working for owners of private bowling alleys as needed.
After the room is fully decorated and furnished, if you think the bowling room looks super awesome, Fusion Bowling will consider sending a professional photographer to do a photo shoot and add the project to our Projects gallery page.
Happy bowling, and stay out of the gutters, my friends.
The answer to this question gets its own cute little flow chart on its own web page. See our Process page.
It takes about six months to get the equipment ordered, prepped, and ready to ship.
A pair of lanes take about one week to install. Single lanes take about six days, and 4-lane projects take about 11 days.
The window of opportunity is after HVAC is up and running but before flooring is installed.
A regulation bowling alley requires about 89 feet of length for the equipment itself (approach + lane + pinsetter + service aisle). If you want a nice size seating area in front of the lanes, tack on another 11 feet, which means your room needs to be about 100 feet long.
Our relationship with our main vendor (Brunswick) and our love for humanity prevent us from doing that. A two-lane bowling alley is comprised of thousands of parts — about 16,000 pounds of equipment and materials — It requires specialized training, specialized tools, and knowledge of carpentry, mechanical engineering, electronics, and software. It takes more than being just a "good handyman."
Yes!
That's purely a matter of individual taste. It's a little like asking how low we can install a basketball goal and it still be fun? If your bowlers will be mostly kids or people who haven't bowled much, they might not mind extremely shortened lanes. But, serious league and tournament bowlers won't like a non-regulation size.
It actually requires more labor to cut and splice the materials. But we'll call it a wash.
Most of our customers form a relationship with a 3rd-party individual technician from a nearby bowling center. There are also some bowling maintenance companies that serve certain regions of the country. Check our Maintenance page for some options.
The bowling room needs to be climate controlled just like any other room in the house. The main thing is to keep the temperature constant.
Yes. We also include pre-installation site visits, accessories, under-lane structure, scoring system with monitors, training, and as much consultation as you need during the design phase.
Browse some answers to our most common questions, or you can drop us a line to ask something else.
Be sure to check out our pricing page for details, and reach out to our team with any questions or concerns about starting a project.
