Tips For Ideas For Safe Playground Surfaces For Home Playgrounds
Over 200,000 children visit emergency rooms every year due to playground injuries. Installing and maintaining safe playground surfaces is the most important thing you can do to protect your kids at play. The material should be spongy enough to cushion falls. Less than 10% of home playgrounds use a safe surface. Most are on grass and dirt. These are hard surfaces that are muddy and slippery after rain. Concrete and asphalt are not shock absorbent. They should never be used for play areas.
They don’t have to be expensive. Loose fill covers like shredded bark mulch, wood chips, play sand, pea gravel, and recycled rubber mulch are low cost, can by purchased at local retail outlets, and are easy to put in place. One word of warning, these materials should never be used over asphalt or concrete. Loose fill cushions falls, and is relatively clean providing there’s sufficient drainage through the underlying soil. Use a decorative barrier as a retaining wall to keep fill within the play area.
Many homeowners choose sand because kids enjoy playing with sand. Pea gravel is inexpensive and surprisingly shock absorbent. Mulch is comfortable to walk and run over. These materials do require upkeep to maintain a safe and uniform depth. Recycled rubber mulch is virtually indestructible and doesn’t decompose. It doesn’t scatter when kids run and play on it and a six inch depth protects from falls up to 16 feet. Many of these covers are available in a variety of colors.
There are disadvantages to loose fill. Except for rubber mulch, loose fill scatters so it must be raked and leveled regularly to maintain an even depth. Over time these materials decompose so new fill has to be purchased and added. Mulches can be attractive to insects and mold can grow, particularly a problem in wet climates. When kids fall on wood chips they can get splinters. Pea gravel is rough to walk on and slippery when wet. Sand is messy, easily scattered, difficult to clean, and attracts animals who see a giant litter box.
Other home play area options are rubber tiles, rubber mats, synthetic turf, and poured in place surfaces, usually rubber with a polyurethane binder. These are more expensive upfront, but need little upkeep. Whether to use loose fill or a more permanent material depends on how many children will be playing on the playground, and for how many years.
Synthetic and rubber are easy to walk on and wheelchair accessible. They’re spongy, shock absorbent, very safe and easy to maintain. Trash is easy to find and remove, dirt washes off. Insects aren’t attracted and mold can’t grow. No containment barrier is necessary. There’s no scattering or decomposition of materials so protection stays constant. Poured in place surfaces and rubber tiles can be installed over concrete and asphalt as long as proper drainage is provided.
Disadvantages of synthetic and rubber surfaces are the upfront cost of both the materials and professional installation. The ground underneath has to be properly prepared for drainage and safety. In cold weather climates, be sure the material under consideration won’t be damaged by frost.
Your playground can also be an attractive landscape for your yard. Most of these covers are available in a choice of colors. Safe playground surfaces are clean and attractive, kid friendly and durable.
Over 200,000 children visit emergency rooms every year due to playground injuries. Get inside information on safe playground surfaces for home play areas now in our complete overview of everything you need to know about playground surfacing United Kingdom.
