Protecting With Rubber Playground Safety Features

Safety should be one of your biggest concerns if you are a parent, especially when your children are playing on backyard playground equipment. All it takes is one slip or one careless mistake to send your child falling fast to the ground from at least ten feet in the air. If your child were to land on his or her head after that long fall, there could be some serious injuries to deal with. It is for this reason that parents all over the world are deciding to purchase rubber playground safety options, like mats and mulch, to ensure that their kids have a safe and enjoyable playground experience. For a relatively small price, you cannot beat the protective qualities of the rubber playground safety devices. They are definitely a necessity for those parents who care deeply about their children.

Playground mats are probably the most popular rubber playground safety options. These mats come in many different shapes and sizes. You can also purchase such mats in either giant squares which you can cut to shape at a later time or as smaller tiles which will piece together seamlessly. Either option costs approximately the same amount of money and both are certified to protect your children from falls of up to ten feet. Unfortunately, while these rubber mats are certified for safety they are not perfect and do suffer from a few design flaws. While they do guarantee great traction and are very heat and cold resistant, some of the rubber mats are absolutely terrible during rainy seasons as the water can remain on the rubber for days on end without proper drainage. This will cause an extreme loss of traction.

For as little as four dollars per square foot, you can buy the next generation of playground safety – rubber playground mulch. This mulch is available in pieces which are generally one half inch in size and come in a tremendous variety of colors. And unlike the rubber mats, the rubber playground mulch has no traction loss during the rain since its' design allows it to be easily drainable. Six inches of the mulch is recommended for playgrounds which are ten feet high. Be sure to check with the manufacturer if your playground is taller on how much more mulch to add.