Playground Safety Checklist: Are Your Grass Mats Fall Safe?
To maintain a safe play environment, safety surfaces like grass mats have to be professionally installed and well-maintained. Unsure if your surfaces adhere to playground safety standards? Then read our comprehensive guide for grass mat maintenance, installation standards, and recommended inspection.
Our experts have designed this playground safety checklist to help you ensure your playground meets all safety requirements:
1. Professional Safety Checklist on Installation
Proper grass mat installation is critical to ensure the long-term effectiveness of your playground safety mats.
Before installation, appropriate depths are important. This refers to the depth and quality of the material (grass and soil) underneath the grass mats. An insufficient level can reduce the cushioning effect of the grass mats. Therefore, levels must be appropriate for the critical fall height of the equipment above the mats.
After placement, installation teams should confirm that all mats are securely anchored to the ground with fixing pegs. Over time, mats can move around because of the impacts of weather and frequent use. Mats that are not firmly anchored can create uneven surfaces. This can reduce the effectiveness of shock absorption and leave gaps or trip edges as they move.
PlaySmart’s patented grass mat installation technique ensures that all of these requirements for professional surface installation are met. Find out more in our Guide to PlaySmart’s Guarantees Blog.
2. Perform Regular Visual Inspections
In the years after installation, performing routine visual inspections is fundamental to playground safety. Examine your grass mats frequently for signs of wear and tear, including:
- Frayed edges
- Thinning patches
- Widening holes
- Edges subsiding
- Shifting of the mats
- Trip edges
It is vital to keep track of the health of your grass mats to avoid compromises to fall protection. Regular inspections help to identify these issues early before they can grow to become more serious problems. If you notice any changes in the quality of your grass mats, contact the PlaySmart team to organise repairs or replacements where required.
3. Monitor for Trip Hazards
Maintaining a trip-free environment is essential for playground safety. Regularly check the edges of your grass mats to ensure they are not lifting or curling, which can create tripping hazards. If this is an issue on your playground, prompt repair or replacement is necessary to keep your playground safe and enjoyable for children.
PlaySmart’s grass mat installation recesses the edges into the surrounding soil for a stable, neat edge to the matted area. This avoids any trip hazards for years post-installation, even with heavy use.
4. Soil and Grass Health Maintenance
The health of the soil and grass beneath your mats is vital to the overall effectiveness of the outdoor playground mats. We recommend that grass should be kept well maintained with semi-regular watering and mowing over the mats.
After heavy rain or excessive use, certain soil make-ups may suffer from erosion that can weaken the fixings of the mat and reduce effectiveness. In these cases, special attention must be paid to limit further damage. For example: cordoning off the area from use after flooding to allow the soil to drain, or adding extra soil or grass seed through the gaps in the mat to improve stabilisation.
However, grass mat upkeep requirements are minimal aside from basic care for the ground quality. Each playground has different needs for quality soil, but the mats themselves only require intermittent cleaning and sweeping to avoid debris or dirt buildup.
5. Are There Any Playground Safety Hazards in the Mats?
Depending on the source of the rubber used in grass mats, hazardous contaminants like metal wire or other debris may be embedded in the mat. PlaySmart’s EcoSmart recycled rubber avoids this problem that can be a risk in other lower quality recycled rubber materials by sourcing the rubber shred from professionally filtered and inspected aircraft tyres.
Prior to installation, it is important to check the quality of the material to avoid any issues revealing themselves as the outer rubber layers wear down. If not, the safety surface may pose unexpected risks of scratches or further harm. Additionally, to avoid any other debris like rocks or sticks becoming lodged in the mats, you should conduct regular sweeping of the area.
6. Are Your Grass Mats Sinking?
Sinking or subsidence of grass mats are the result of underlying issues with the ground being ill-suited to the grass mat installation method. You can identify this visually as the mats fall below the height of the surrounding area or begin to tilt in one direction.
Grass mat subsidence can reduce the safety of the mats as the cushioning effect is reduced and the critical fall height increases beyond the original requirements. Therefore, it is important to avoid the issue of sinking where possible.
This is usually the result of insufficient drainage or poor carrying capacity of the soil. The SmartPlay system reduces the risk of this by more equally distributing the weight of the mats and reducing the stress on the soil in certain high impact areas by introducing higher levels of shock absorption. Our team will recommend this for certain projects that have lower quality soil that requires extra support.
Prioritise Safety with Our Playground Safety Checklist
Neglecting grass mat maintenance can lead to serious safety hazards and increased repair costs. By implementing the best practices outlined in this checklist, you can extend the lifespan of your mats and maintain a safe play environment.
Are our grass mats right for your playground? Get in touch with the form on our contact page to request a free quote. You can also contact us about our playground maintenance services if your grass mats are suffering from any of the issues outlined in this checklist.
