Playground safety guides
Plain answers to the questions people who look after a playground actually ask, each quoting its source. Nothing here is legal advice.
- How deep should playground mulch be?
The CPSC minimum compressed depth for wood mulch, wood chips, sand, pea gravel and rubber, by fall height, quoted from Pub. 325.
- What is a playground's required fall zone?
The CPSC use-zone distance around playground equipment and the minimum spacing between swings, quoted from Pub. 325.
- What are common playground safety hazards?
The head-entrapment, rust and hot-surface hazards CPSC's Pub. 325 tells owners to check equipment for.
- What is the CPSC Public Playground Safety Handbook?
Who publishes Pub. 325, what it covers, and how it differs from the ASTM standards it references.
- What are the ASTM playground safety standards?
What ASTM F1487, F1292 and F2075 each cover, described by scope only since the standards themselves are copyrighted.
- How common are playground injuries?
What CPSC's injury data shows about playground accidents, as cited in the Pub. 325 introduction.
- How often should playground equipment be inspected?
Chapter 4 of Pub. 325 names no interval and says what one depends on. The two state licensing rules we have read do set one, and both are quoted.
- What belongs on a daycare playground checklist?
The 24 boxes on CPSC's Appendix A round, what Texas and North Carolina require of licensed child care centers, and the four sentences of §4.4.
- What are the playground safety standards?
How CPSC guidelines, ASTM standards, state licensing codes and the ADA differ in what they bind, and which of the four is actually law.
- What should a playground maintenance record include?
What CPSC's Pub. 325 recordkeeping section says a record should hold, that the section sets no retention period, and the two state rules that do.
- What does proper playground supervision require?
What CPSC's Pub. 325 asks of a playground supervisor, its table of age-appropriate equipment, and why it sets no staff-to-child ratio.
- Does CPSC's handbook cover an HOA playground?
Pub. 325 names apartment and condominium playgrounds in its own definition. What its guidance asks about who inspects, how often, and what to keep.