Tag: playground safety

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Playground Planning Playground Safety

Top Playground Safety Inspection Tips

Evaluating Playground Safety

Playground safety should be a primary factor of your project planning. Playgrounds are designed to withstand everything the environment and children can throw at them but they still need TLC to help keep them safe. When your playground is first installed it should meet every current standard but regular maintenance is needed over time to ensure playground safety measures are in place.

Don’t Ignore the Small Stuff

Little nicks and gouges in the powder coating, divots in the rubber components and other small imperfections are all side effects of regular use and exposure to the elements and infrequently may be the result of vandalism. Once or twice a year, your playground should be inspected for these issues.

Catching these problems early on prevents further damage to your structure. Catching and treating these small issues can significantly extend the life and beauty of your playground. Repair damage to metal posts using the touch-up paint provided in your playground care kit.

Hint: always check for damage at welded joints where the paint is the thinnest. Small damage to thermoplastic coated decks can be repaired using a torch but you may want to have a professional handle the repair if you aren’t handy.

Double Check for Anything out of Place

Children are creative and love to decorate their favorite things. It’s not unusual to find strings, yarn or cord tied around bars or woven through equipment. Unfortunately, these little works of art can become tangled with hands, fingers and ankles. Always remove any strings or cloth you find as even the smallest pieces can be an entanglement hazard.

You will also want to look for anything sticking up out of the ground, particularly if you use a loose fill surface like rubber mulch. From tree roots to lost toys and broken sticks anything that doesn’t belong on the playground should be regularly removed. If you’re using a loose fill surfacing, go ahead and rake it all back into place.

Evaluate Your Site for Playground Safety

Take a moment to step back and look at your entire playground safety efforts. Is everything still level? Are there any dramatic dips or pot holes? Cracked concrete, misaligned borders and puddling away from equipment can be a sign that your subbase is washing away or that tree roots may be damaging your play surface. As with any problem the sooner you identify the issue the easier and more affordable the solution will be.

This is also an opportunity to take a look up. If your playground is near trees, it’s important to keep the branches trimmed back  and away from equipment, at least 6 feet away. You should also look for damaged or dead branches that might fall onto the playground equipment or guests.

In previous blog posts we’ve discussed the importance of using proper surfacing and discussed what requirements need to be met to meet different material safety and design safety standards. For more information on playground safety, subscribe to our blog!

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Playground Safety Playground Safety Surfacing

Playground Safety Measures to Implement at Your Organization

boy-being-helped-by-an-adult-on-a-playground-spinner

Playground Safety is one of the most important components of safety in a play space, so it’s important to know what you should be inspecting in order to keep children safe at play.

Playground Safety Statistics

According to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission:

About 200,000 children are treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms for playground equipment-related injuries. An estimated 148,000 of these injuries involve public playground equipment and an estimated 51,000 involve home playground equipment.

Also, about 15 children die each year as a result of playground equipment-related incidents. Most of the injuries are the result of falls. These are primarily falls to the ground below the equipment, but falls from one piece of equipment to another are also reported. Most deaths are due to strangulations, though some are due to falls.

Playground Safety Measures

Let’s educate you from the ground up on playground structure safety. Children at play may fall off the structure injuring their heads, arms and legs. Placing cement or asphalt under a play structure is forbidden because the surface does not have any kind of effective shock absorption. If a child falls and hits his or her head on these surfaces he or she may obtain a fractured skull or neck, a concussion or even swelling of the brain. Falling on these surfaces may also result in death.

Safe Playground Surfaces

An example of safe wood mulch playground surfacing.

Wooden and rubber mulch, fine sand and fine gravel are great surfaces for a play space. These surfaces have fantastic shock absorbency, preventing injuries upon falling. You still must maintain these surfaces, making sure the depth is well-kept and there are no exposed roots, rocks or hard ground.  All BYO Recreation surfaces are ADA, ASTM and CPSC certified. In other words, you can be sure that your children will have a lesser chance of injury if they fall.

Playground Structures

An example of playground bars exceeding the recommended 9" standard.
These playground overhead bars exceed 9″, and therefor do not present an entrapment hazard.

Moving up the ladder to the play structures, we can find more ways to implement playground safety. Let’s start with prevention of head entrapment.

Children love to climb through safety bars on the playground. However, if they attempt to go through feet first they will reduce their ability to climb out of danger’s way causing their head to get stuck between bars. If unattended, children can strangle to death as a result.

In general, openings that are closed on all sides should be less than 3 1/2″ or greater than 9″, according to the U.S. CPSC. Openings that are between 3′ 1/2″ and 9″ present a head entrapment hazard. These openings are large enough to permit a child’s body to go through, but are too small for a child’s head.

Installation & Maintenance

BYO Recreation offers professional installment of all playground equipment through our National Playground Construction Company (NPC). NPC is a licensed Certified General Contractor (CGC) and all NPC installers are certified by the National Playground Safety Institute as playground professionals (NPSI). Hiring us will ensure you that your playground is assembled properly and meets all the safety codes and regulations put in place by government organizations such as the U.S. CPSC.

We also recommend that you inspect all hooks to make sure they are tightly closed with no protrusions. This prevents children’s clothing from getting caught which, can cause strangulation. Ropes and cords are yet another way that children can be strangled. They can get tangled in or fall on to the rope or cord that has been tied around a part of the play structure. It is important to make sure ropes and cords hang normally and are not tied or tangled in dangerous ways.

Learn More About Playground Safety

These are only a couple ways to incorporate playground safety and reduce the amount of injuries or deaths on your play area. Help save children’s lives by inspecting your playground on a regular basis.

Additionally, to learn more about playground safety, please review the Public Playground Safety Handbook. To obtain a playground safety checklist please refer to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission’s Public Playground Safety Checklist.

If you would like to request a professional to examine your playground equipment, please give us a call at 1-800-853-5316. One of our consultants will be more than happy to assist you and answer all of your playground safety questions.

Categories
Playground Equipment Playground Safety

What You Should Know About Playground Maintenance & Safety

Playground maintenance is a huge part protecting your investment and prolonging the life of your playground equipment. Whether you are in charge of maintaining a playground for a school, church or community, you should familiarize yourself with basic playground maintenance requirements to assure you maintain a safe play environment. We have covered the different playground components in previous blog posts, and encourage you to treat each part of your playground with equal care.

Playground Maintenance Checklist

Structures & Independent Items

Playground structures combine many of the maintenance concerns of independent play equipment along with their own special care. The complexity of your playground maintenance routine is determined by your structure size and what types of components it incorporates. Even the largest structures should not require more than a few hours of playground maintenance per year.

Hidden Problems to Note

The most dangerous accidents on playgrounds result in entanglement or entrapment. Entanglement most frequently happens when clothing, rope or fabric becomes tied or tangled on equipment. Hooded sweatshirts and other loose clothing is the biggest factor in entanglement. However, you can minimize risks by ensuring that there are no bolts or screws protruding. Additionally, any rope, string, or ribbon that children may have tied onto the structure should be removed immediately.

Entrapment occurs when a body part is not easily be removable from or pass through equipment. Older equipment has gaps built into the design that are no longer safe. Inspect any equipment over 10 years old with the services of a certified playground safety inspector. The inspector will use a set of templates to test the openings on your equipment. This determines if they are neither too small nor too wide for safe use.

Independent Playground Equipment Maintenance

There are a number of other hazards that can occur as your playground is exposed to time. Each year, your playground maintenance routine should consist of examining the underside of your structure. Safely remove any insect or wasp nests before they can become a danger. Remember that if a child can get in or under something, they will. The safest course of action is to treat your entire play area and always remove anything that doesn’t belong.

Like anything else, your playground will benefit tremendously from a regular maintenance routine. Cover any scratches or chips with a fresh coat of touch up paint to prevent rusting. Also, clean off any built up dirt or grime and clean moving parts so that they move smoothly. Furthermore, check that any loose joints, close bolt or pins, and remove any damaged equipment. Check your surfacing to ensure that loose fill has not become swept away and replenish it as needed.

All together, you’ll probably spend less time maintaining your playground than sweeping up leaves or removing trash each year. However, taking the time to create a proper maintenance plan will greatly extend your equipment life.

Learn more about playground maintenance and safety for independent play equipment, swing sets ,and surfacing!