KidSoft Playground Safety Surface

KidSoft Playground Safety Surfacing

- Little or No Maintenance!
- Never Gets Hard!
- Never Comes Apart!
- Never Exposes the Ground Below!
- Will Fit Existing Playgrounds!
- Can Be Used With Either Existing Structures or New Construction!
- Safer Than the Alternatives With It's 13 Foot Critical Fall Height!
- 10 Year Warranty
- ADA Accessible
- Variety of Colors
- IPEMA Certified

History

Hello, my name is George McGuan, and as a boy in Gary, Indiana, I played on playgrounds covered with pulverized slag from the steel mills. I didn't get hurt but some kids did. As an adult, my business partner and I founded Kidstuff Playsystems, Inc., building commercial grade playgrounds (with seven kids between us, my partner and I had a built-in test market). When guidelines for playground safety were first published in the early 1980's, we were happy to see that impact-absorbing material was strongly encouraged on playgrounds. But we haven't been happy at all with what has been used for safety surfacing, how it's worked, or the headaches and expense it's created for those trying to maintain it.

We have worked for 5 years to develop a new playground safety surfacing product. We call it KidSoft® and now it's available to you at a lower cost than high end products. KidSoft® will in fact reduce your maintenance expenses and make your kids safer.

We still live in Gary, Indiana and have 8 grandchildren - all of whom can come and visit and play on a safety surface that works. So, give us a call and we'll tell you how to make your kids safer, too.

Safety

When the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued it's first safety guidelines for public playgrounds in 1981 the data was clear: on playgrounds there were more children hurt falling from the equipment to the ground than from all other causes combined. Over 30 years later - after schools, parks and others have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on playground safety surfacing -- the CPSC makes this assessment on it's website: "The most recent CPSC staff study of public playground equipment-related injuries treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms indicated that the majority (79%) resulted from falls from equipment."

In excess of 20% of every playground dollar is now spent on safety surfacing, but where is the progress??? Equipment manufacturers help playground owners keep their children safer by improving equipment design to reduce falls and by requiring CPSC - approved surfaces to cushion falls when they do occur, but it is no secret that every surfacing solution on the market has serious drawbacks.

At Kidstuff Playsystems we have been dismayed by your surfacing options for a long, long time. We have watched sand and pea gravel appear on playgrounds in the early 80's and virtually disappear in a decade. While wood chips, various recycled rubber products, and wood fiber are affordable and have shown some promise, all of these "answers" only work if someone is diligently raking those materials on a daily (or even more frequent) basis. And there is the issue of little or no accessiblity.

Unitary surfaces (impact-absorbing tiles and poured-in- place[PIP] rubber mixtures) provide very attractive playground areas and require minimal maintanance; and they are accessible. However, they require expensive site preparation to perform well and this only adds to an already high price tag. But the customer gets what he pays for, right? We think not. While tiles have the advantage of a consistent manufacturing process in a controlled environment, PIP is mixed on site. Even when mixed with great care, the entire PIP process is subject to variables of temperature, humidity, and weather generally, that are completely outside the control of even the best installer. With either process, however, the most serious issue is an increased frequency of long-bone fractures than are seen with loose-fill material. There is no way around it--those surfaces are HARD. They DO pass safety standards for minimizing fatal and disabling falls--heads survive...other bones do less well. And there is another factor to consider; very important, under study in Canada, but ignored in the U.S. In order to hold tiles or the particles of a PIP surface together the manufacturers must use chemical bonding agents. These chemicals change over time. They get less flexible. That means your surface (already hardest of any of the choices) gets harder. Every day. How much harder? No one is saying at present. These surfaces are only tested within days of manufacture. No further testing is required. Maybe it's being done; maybe not; but if the numbers were GOOD we expect we would see them. Our conclusion is that all these surfaces are better than no surface at all, but injury data doesn't suggest they are a great deal better. Loose fill is typically not where you put it when you really need it, and unitary surfaces are just much too hard. What is required is a way to put the best cushion possible under the children--and rubber chips have supporting test data that shows them far and away superior to anything else--but in a way that keeps them where they are required bounce after bounce, year after year. Take a close look at Kidsoft®, because it is the only system that does all that!

Specifications

Chambered Shells

Borders

H-Channels

Color Fusion Rubber Mat

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