Seasonal Considerations for Playground Inspections

Throughout its lifespan, your playground will encounter a wide variety of environmental challenges. From the cold and damp winter weather to the scorching British summer, each season definitely brings its own surprises to your play area!

Due to this, playground inspections play a vital role in maintaining your playground throughout the year and keeping your playground safe. Not only do these inspections highlight any risks or threats to the children's safety, but they can help extend the lifespan of your play area by preventing severe malfunctions and damage from ocurring.

In this blog, we'll be discussing how each season can bring its own unique risks and maintenance requirements to your playground and why it's important to have a RPII-accredited inspector to carry out playground inspections throughout the year.

Winter Inspections

During the winter season, your playground will encounter a variety of environmental challenges. Each challenge can pose a serious risk to the lifespan of your play area and can even lead to your play equipment becoming faulty and unsafe.

Some of the most common problems that have been reported by playground inspectors include:

• Damage from freeze-thaw cycles
• An increase in rust or corrosion on metal components
• Negative impacts caused by de-icing materials on your equipment and surfacing
• Structural stress due to snow load
• Snow and ice accumulation on equipment and surfaces

Winter playground inspections will often have their focus shifted to identifying these problems and trying to put things in to place to stop any serious damage occurring to your play area equipment. However, this can be a difficult task to do yourself as these problems can be difficult to identify without the right experience.

Some schools and businesses may think that they're saving money by halting their play area inspections throughout the winter months, as the usage might be lower, but this is far from the case. Without inspections, your playground could be left at the mercy of the poor weather conditions and any signs of potential damage will evolve into serious malfunctions and safety hazards, reflecting poorly on your organisation.

Spring Inspections

As the winter months subside, the spring season introduces itself to your playground. However, that doesn't mean that your playground is safe from any potential risks of damage. The British spring is infamous for bringing heavy rain across the nation, causing a variety of problems to occur.

It's important that you have a seasonal playground inspection during this period, as some of the most common problems your play area can experience include:

• Damage carried over from the winter months
• Frost heave effects on equipment foundations
• Water damage or erosion on surfacing materials
• Mould or mildew growth on playground equipment
• Malfunctioning drainage systems

Each of these common problems can put a playground at risk of breaking safety regulations, increasing the likelihood of a serious injury occurring on play areas that aren't inspected. To avoid this, having qualified inspection and maintenance programmes carried out can help to eliminate any potential risks from developing.

Spring months will often lead to an increase in footfall traffic throughout your playground, making it important that play areas make a great impression by presenting a safe and engaging space for children to explore.

Summer Inspections

The British summer can pose a serious challenge to playgrounds across the UK. Not only does the weather and high temperatures put strain on play equipment and safety surfacing, but the increase in usage can add even more stress to your playground.

To avoid any serious damage or safety risks, summer play area inspections will often focus on these common problems:

• Heat related hazards (e.g. hot metal surfaces)
• UV damage to plastic components
• Increased wear and tear due to higher usage
• Shaded structures and their effectiveness
• Pest infestations (e.g. wasps nests)

The summer season will often see a huge increase in commercial playground usage, due to the long half-term summer break and children desperate to find an activity to do. As a result, all commercial playgrounds will hold the responsibility to keep their play areas safe to avoid serious injuries from occurring.

Having summer playground inspections will not only make your business look proactive and retain customers, but it will also help you save money by identifying any small signs of damage and maintaining them to avoid the development of unrepairable damage.

Autumn Inspections

As the summer season comes to a close, your playground will be introduced to the autumn months. During this time, your playground will have a decline in usage but the weather conditions will become more unpredictable.

When your playground is being inspected during these months, most inspectors will focus on the following factors:

• Accumulation of fallen leaves on surfaces
• Damage from falling branches or debris
• Equipment stability due to changing ground conditions
• Inspecting drainage systems before winter
• Preparing equipment for winter (e.g. covering certain items)

As you can see, the autumn months play a pivotal role in preparing your playground for the winter months. However, this doesn't mean your playground is 100% safe during this season. Whether it's a school playground or a commercial one, a play area inspection wouldn't go a miss.

Having autumn playground inspections can help put your play area in the best position possible for winter by highlighting any signs of damage and reducing the impact of other factors that autumn can bring with it.

What Should I Do For My Seasonal Inspections?

Seasonal inspections play a huge role in maintaining the safety of your playground all year round, whilst also extending the lifespan of your play equipment. Knowing this, many play areas across the UK know the importance of these vital inspections and will often hire a play inspection company that is affiliated with RoSPA.

At Pentagon Play, we've worked for over 25 years within the playground industry and know how challenging it can be to find a reliable playground inspections and maintenance service, which is why we created our own division!

Each of our playground inspectors are RPII-accredited and have years of experience within the industry, letting you rest easy knowing that our experts are on the case. Each inspector will work closely with you, helping you understand the process from start to finish and how you can make your playground a safe space for all children.

Not only that, but if your play area has Pentagon's play equipment on it, our Inspections and Maintenance team will carry out the basic maintenance and repairs to your Pentagon Play equipment during the entire process, saving you valuable money and time.

Having hundreds of glowing testimonials and 5-star ratings, it's no surprise why we are the UK's leading experts in the playground industry and we're excited to offer our expertise in a brand new service. Our inspectors will make the entire process stress-free and seamless, allowing you to focus on the things that matter most.

When you use the Pentagon Play Inspections and Maintenance service, you won't have to:

• Spend hundreds of hours trying to understand season-specific hazards
• Spend thousands of specialised tools
• Get trained on specialised techniques for certain seasonal checks
• Carry out an in-depth risk assessment
• Create a seasonal maintenance calendar
• Plan long-term maintenance programmes
• And more

Save yourself the stress and put your trust in the experts as Pentagon Play will help you keep your playground in tip-top shape!

Conclusion

Having seasonal playground inspections are vital for keeping your playground in working order and for saving you thousands of pounds in repair and replacement costs. Contact the Inspections and Maintenance service today and see how our team of fully-qualified experts can help you keep your playground a safe space.