Top 3 Safety Surfaces for Playgrounds

Since health and safety standards have become more and more important throughout the UK, you will find that it is vital to ensure your school or nursery playground has some sort of safety surfacing installed to keep the children using the facility safe in the event they fall off equipment. The primary goal should be to make certain that the kids won’t hurt themselves if they fall over. This is why you need to think about installing safety surfacing.

So, which safety flooring type should you have installed? It can be difficult to choose which safety surfacing to install to keep the kids safe, since there are many options to choose from. We have created a list of the top 3 safety surfaces for playgrounds which we install all over the United Kingdom to ensure children remain safe.

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Wet Pour Surfacing

One of the best safety surfaces to install in a school or nursery playground is wet pour rubber flooring. Wetpour consists of EPDM rubber granules which we mix with a specialist binder. We then screed it onto a concrete, stone or macadam sub base to create a smooth even layer. Wetpour is available in a number of different colours and can also have graphic inserts installed to create a fun play area for young people.

Some of the popular colours include:

Red
Blue
Green
Yellow
Purple
Pink

There are also many other popular wetpour colours and mixtures which we also supply depending on the design you would like. Do bear in mind that some colours come at a higher price point than others, and standard black is always our cheapest option.

One great thing about wet pour surfacing is that we could alter the depth of the flooring to meet specific Critical Fall Heights. If high playground equipment is present on the area, we might install the wetpour much thicker to absorb the impact, in the event a child falls off the equipment.

If you want to find out about the installation process, please have a look at this video below. It shows one of the wetpour installations we have carried out within the UK:

Another great thing about wetpour surfacing is that it requires very little maintenance. In the event the flooring suffers damage due to vandalism, rips or perimeter shrinkage, you can fix the area easily with the help of a professional team – or even DIY repair kits. In some cases, you could cut the wet pour into a particular shape and install a different colour there to make exciting graphics for children to play on.

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EPDM wet pour rubber is a great surface type and has a fantastic impact absorbing properties. If you wish to find out the costs of installing this type of rubberised flooring, please visit this page or get in touch with our team using the enquiry form available.

Rubber Playground Mulch

The second play surface on our list of the top 3 safety surfaces for playgrounds is rubber mulch. Rubber mulch is basically bonded play bark, which offers impact absorbing properties to create a safer surface for children to play on.

This type of surfacing is ideal for woodlands areas and playgrounds which become muddy in wet conditions. Rubberised playground mulch offers a more natural look, yet can still keep children safe when using playground equipment and timber trails.

Just like wetpour, the mulch is available in different depths to meet up with various CFHs. The purpose of this flooring is to create a natural looking area which is safe for young children to play on. Rubber mulch is available in different colours too. Brown and green are the more popular shades to choose, as these look the most natural.

Bonded rubberised shred is basically loose rubberised chippings that have been bound together using resin. There are many advantages of resin bound rubber mulch, which includes minimal maintenance work and preparation needed during the installation. Since we can lay rubber shred on most surface types, the cost to install this surfacing is reasonably low.

Artificial Grass Play Area

The last of our three surfaces which you could use for safety play-areas is artificial grass. When installing synthetic turf for nurseries and schools, you can have the option of a shockpad. We can install shockpads beneath the artificial grass to make a more impact absorbing surface; this makes the flooring a lot safer in the event children fall over.

Artificial grass play areas are a great option if you are looking for a more natural appearance. There are a number of different synthetic turf specifications available to ensure you receive exactly what you are looking for. Synthetic grass can come with different pile heights to suit the client’s needs; you will find that some pile heights make the surface look more natural when compared to others.

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Playground Safety Flooring

All of these surfaces are completely porous, which gives them a huge advantage over natural surfaces like grass. These could become muddy and waterlogged in wet conditions. The equipment you have within the area and how you’ll use it will determine which surface is best for your playground.

As an example, if you are looking for a natural woodlands appearance, wet pour would not be an option. We can discuss the different surfaces in more detail if necessary and we can offer our professional opinion along with details on costs. To find out more regarding playground safety flooring, please get in touch using the enquiry form presented on this page.

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If you wish to find out more about the various surfaces that we install for playgrounds, please get in touch. We would be more than happy to provide you with more information on the best surfaces for play areas. We’ll also give information on which are the most safe for young children.

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