KaBOOM! Forums

Not any discussion on this topic yet but rest assured this is a major issue. It is essential that you consider maintenance issues when you consider your park. At a minimum your insurance company is going to expect someone with knowledge of the equipment to make periodic inspections of the equipment.  It is best if the inspections are scheduled. If your equipment has a functional life of ten years can you consider budgeting some money each year towards replacement costs when it wears out?  It is equally important that you keep a record of your inspections and any items that need repair.  You need to keep a log of the items repaired and who repaired them.  Any park you build these days will be designed for user safety for the long term.  However normal wear and tear, vandalism and the weather can render some pieces unsafe to use.  In order to protect yourself, your organization and most important, the kids on the equipment, please give serious thought to the following:

Who is going to be in charge of maintenance?

How will you fund maintenance?

Who will perform routine repairs?

If someone identifies a problem who will they report it to?

Where will the log be held and maintained?

A photo log would be a great idea.

I work for a municipal government and managed a skatepark build as a volunteer project.  While the parks department has assumed the responsibility for maintenance of the park they do not give it a high priority. Nor have they budgeted any money for repairs or maintenance.  The landscaping alone requires about 100 man-hours a year to keep looking good. Everyone expects the volunteers who built the project to come back and give it tender loving care but that just isn’t the reality. We have an ideal situation and should be rock solid in this area but as you can see our experience is less that ideal.  So please consider these in advance and make it a part of your budget.

I have trouble finding the login every time- maybe should let guests post so that things are easier-  Anyway, there is a calculator at the Maryland Environmental Services website for treadspread http://www.treadspread.com/

We are paying $.17 a pound for chopped rubber.  That works out to $2.38 a square foot.  We tried shredded rubber in the past and had to remove it because of complaints about staining kids clothes and melting in their pockets in the dryer.  No complaints with this newer product.  We love it.  If you put down wear mats it is almost maintenance free, and my impression is that 6" of the chopped rubber feels far springier (safer) than 12" of wood fiber.

Hi Tina,

In order to meet CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) guidelines, wood fiber surfacing must have an uncompressed depth of 12" (9" compressed).  When you installed your playground, it was most likely installed with the understanding that the surfacing would be at least 9" deep.  If you decide to use the shredded rubber, technically speaking you only need 6" - BUT your playground was not installed for a 6" surfacing level - meaning that the playground structure (picture slides too far off the ground) would be 3" too high.  In other words, you still need to install 9" of shredded rubber for the new playground. 

In my opinion, I would stick to adding more engineered wood fiber unless you can a) separate the new playground from the old one with border timbers AND b) install at least 9" of compressed shredded rubber.

Hope that helps!

Tiffiney

Hi all.  We have a new issue.  We have existing safety surfacing that we are moving out of the way to tear out old and install new equipment.  Well, how can you tell how much you need to order before you get it all back into place?  We want to have it on site for build day, but obviously don't want to spend more than necessary.  And, it's hard to tell how much depth we have currently since it's all compacted and will be moved and moved back again.  Anybody experience this?

Tina