Each year over 200,000 children are injured in American playgrounds. 70% of the children injured received their injuries from falls to the surface below the play equipment. Playground safety begins with the proper artificial grass for playgrounds to protect your children or students from falls from equipment or tripping. Having the proper artificial playground turf surface is critical to ensuring that a simple fall from a slide or swing will not turn into a trip to the emergency room. Our artificial playground turfs are certified to meet critical fall heights requirements and are designed to create a safe and realistic surface that will keep your little ones playing safe and happily for years to come.
What is the “Playground Critical Fall Height for playground surfacing?
The playground critical fall height of a playground surface is based on the height of the highest piece of equipment that a child can stand on. This height will determine the thickness or impact attenuation a playground surface must have as described in ASTM F1292.
ASTM F1292 testing will provide a “critical height” rating of the playground surface. This height can be viewed as an approximation of the playground fall height which is below the level that would be expected to cause a life threatening head injury.
When looking for artificial playground turf surfacing it is very important to have the manufacturer or installer provide the playground critical fall height rating of their materials. ArtificialTurfSupply.com’s playground artificial turf products (ProPLAY PLUS series ) have a critical fall height rating of 7 feet. Make sure you are buying the right playground surface for your playground. You can’t put a price on the safety of the children playing on your playground.
How is the “Playground Critical Fall Height determined?
The most common way that artificial playground turfs are tested is a method used for evaluating the shock absorbing properties of a playground surfacing material. This method is dropping an instrumented metal head-form onto a sample of the playground surfacing material and to record the acceleration – time pulse during acceleration. Simply put, how fast and hard the metal head-form hit surface from varying heights.
Note: For both field and laboratory test methods please refer to ASTM F1292.
How is the height of the playground equipment determined?
The Playground Critical fall height of equipment is determined by the distance between the highest designated play area of the equipment and the play surface underneath. This is measured form the point at which the feet can stand and not the overall top of the playground equipment. Many pieces of equipment have tops of coverings so the measurement is not taken form that point but where the child would be standing at the highest point during normal play.
For example if you had a pyramid, climbing up that pyramid you would not be measuring the fall height from the very tip of the pyramid since you can’t stand on the tip. You would measure form the point at which the feet can stand.
Why is the Playground Critical fall height important?
There are a lot of companies out there that would tell you don’t have to worry about the fall height of your playground surfacing. We have seen many playgrounds especially in private pre schools where they will use an indoor outdoor carpet with a pad underneath it. May of the schools can have a long history of injury free play but all it takes is one bad fall by a child that can result in life threatening injuries. Once a child is severely injured or even worse, suffers a fatal injury, the money saved by installing an inferior playground surface becomes very unimportant, not to mention the legal liability this situation can create.
For more on fall critical fall heights please feel free to contact and ArtificialTurfSupply.com specialist.
