Here at No Fault Surfaces, we are always talking about playground safety. After all, the complete No Fault Safety Surface Systemis designed to provide a resilient, porous and unitary playground safety surface. We believe that it’s the best rubber surface available for fall protection and ADA accessibility.
However … Let’s not forget that No Fault Safety Surface is a multi-purpose application. That means it’s not just for playgrounds! Indeed, its versatility makes it a great choice for playgrounds, splash pads, walking tracks, and perhaps a few things that you haven’t even considered.
If you need a durable, attractive surfacing material for indoors or outdoors, No Fault Safety Surface just might be the solution you’ve been looking for.
What’s It Made Of?
No Fault Safety Surface is a unique combination of synthetic EPDM rubber (ethylene propylene diene monomer) or TPV rubber granules (thermoplastic vulcanizate). A cushion layer of shredded recycled rubber goes on the outside. This “wear layer” is available in a wide variety of colors—you even have the option to create fun theme-shaped designs.
The EPDM or TPV components are held together with a polyurethane binder. No Fault Safety Surface is poured on-site by our professional technicians, giving you a unitary surface for endless applications. We install almost anywhere in the country, and our product is backed by a full warranty.
Okay … So Why Is No Fault Safety Surfacing Good For Playgrounds?
Our poured-in-place rubber playground surface provides critical fall height protection for children on playgrounds. This means the shock-absorbing properties of No Fault Safety Surface can help disperse the momentum of a falling body or head, thus reducing the risk of life-threatening injuries.
As the originator of the poured-in-place playground surface, No Fault’s clients include many park and recreation departments across the country. Our innovative surfacings have helped to create safer playground environments around the globe.
Sounds Good, But Didn’t You Say It’s Not Just
For Playgrounds?
To get some ideas on the wide range of applications for which our products have been used look at some of our recent non-playground projects. For example, The San Bernardino Juvenile Detention Center in San Bernardino, California used our colorful poured-in-place rubber surface to repurpose their outdoor basketball and tennis courts.
Speaking of basketball courts, here’s another one where our “PIP” rubber surfacing is making the game easier on players’ knees and reducing the risk of injuries from falls:
Are you thinking of building an all-inclusive, adaptive baseball/softball field fully accessible to players with and without disabilities? No Fault can help! Here are some pictures of accessible baseball fields that No Fault provided and installed our rubber surfacing for:
Take a look at our No Fault Safety Surface that we custom installed for decorative “knee walls” for a pool area in New Haven, Indiana. (A “knee wall” is a short wall, typically less than three feet in height, used to support structures.) Our customer loves it!
No Fault Safety Surface also makes excellent residential pool decking, as you can see at this installation we did at a private residence in Louisville, Kentucky:
No Fault partnered with Heartland Park & Recreation to provide and install all-black rubber surfacing for the Centerville Walking Track in Centerville, Texas. The results are outstanding!
And what do you think the folks at the Entergy Riverbend Firing Range in St. Francisville, Louisiana selected for their flooring material? You guessed it! No Fault Safety Surface!
As you can see, there are virtually endless applications for indoor and outdoor safety surfacing. It’s soft under your feet while remaining durable and weatherproof. Contact us today so we can assist you with your upcoming flooring projects.
Playgrounds are meant for ALL children. Parents and school administrators need occasional reminders that this means including children with disabilities too.
Disabilities can range from physical challenges to emotional, behavioral, or learning difficulties. This commonly includes things like:
Autism
ADHD
Cerebral palsy
Down syndrome
Emotional issues
Epilepsy
Reading and learning disabilities
Intellectual disabilities
These kids may need additional supervision and accommodations. Still, the benefits of play are just as important for them as they are for any other child.
Many of these benefits come from inclusive play with other children. Kids get the most out of play when they’re playing with other children with different abilities and skills. This means that children with disabilities shouldn’t have their own separate playtime.
The federal government considers inclusive classrooms to be the gold standard for early childhood education. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Education wrote a joint policy statement in 2015 which states:
“Children with disabilities and their families continue to face significant barriers to accessing inclusive high-quality early childhood programs, and too many preschool children with disabilities are only offered the option of receiving special education services in settings separate from their peers without disabilities.”
“Children don’t think of themselves or their peers as disabled unless we tell them that,” says Shirley Swope, parent advisor at the PEAK Parent Center, a resource center with services for families of children with special needs. “Separating or segregating children tells them they’re different from each other, and that message sticks making it harder and harder for them to integrate as they get older.”
Fostering an all-around, supporting environment means making sure similarities are reinforced. Including children with and without disabilities in the same play groups gives them the opportunity to understand and practice inclusion, acceptance, and empathy.
Kids are naturally curious. Children will have questions about how mental and physical disabilities work. Help them understand that everyone is different, and that children with disabilities deserve respect and acceptance.
Children are often taught to ignore their peers with disabilities. Or worse, they’re taught to treat them differently. So, instead of talking about how children with disabilities are different, talk about the ways all children are similar.
A common myth about inclusion is that attention given to children with disabilities will take away from other children. In fact, research indicates that children without disabilities make similar developmental gains in regular and inclusive preschools (Source). Peers can share what they know, modeling behaviors for peers with disabilities and boosting their own abilities through sharing and demonstration.
When you’re supervising kids of different abilities, keep a watchful eye for bullying or mean-spirited joking. Since children with disabilities are commonly considered “easy targets,” you have to take steps to protect them.
Teachers and parents might consider using “buddy systems” on playgrounds. This is when a child is matched to a classmate with disabilities during play. The buddy system encourages cooperative play between children in inclusive settings. Select peers who enjoy similar activities. Children may require some training about the best ways to engage their “buddy” in play and how to interpret their behavior and communication style.
Aside from taking steps to integrate children with disabilities into the overall group, you’ll need to make accommodations with your playground equipment as well. Common accommodations for kids with disabilities might include putting a fence around a playground area, making sure pathways are wheelchair accessible, and including playground equipment that allows kids of all abilities to play together.
Whenever room permits, go above and beyond Americans With Disabilities Act guidelines and make pathways wider than 60 inches. This enables group access for all visitors while accommodating wheeled devices like wheelchairs and strollers.
How do you encourage inclusive play? We’d love to hear your ideas! No Fault Surfaces can provide innovative rubber safety surfacing that makes it easy for all children to play together. We work with manufacturers to build playgrounds that emphasize safety, inclusion, and value. Contact us to discuss how No Fault safety surfacing can make your playground more inclusive.
A great playground requires fun equipment, engaging layouts, inclusive designs, and safety surfacing for creativity to blossom in a safe environment. For owner/operators and architects responsible for building and maintaining these great playgrounds, it takes making the best decisions about playground surfacing and equipment, which usually means working with vendors who are IPEMA certified.
So … What does it mean to be “IPEMA certified”?
The International Play Equipment Manufacturers Association (IPEMA) Certification Seal for Public Play Equipment means that a supplier conforms to the play industry’s highest standards for safety and accessibility. IPEMA certification is a promise to customers that the play equipment and surfacing will reduce the chance of injury.
As a trade organization, IPEMA protects it’s members by keeping inferior, non-compliant products from flooding the market. Industry-sponsored voluntary certification programs can preempt the need for mandatory federal regulations, and as a result, IPEMA certification has kept government regulation of the industry at a minimum.
Let’s take a closer look at IPEMA certification and its history.
It All Started With ASTM
ASTM International, formerly known as American Society for Testing and Materials, is the organization that develops and publishes technical standards for all kinds of materials, products, and services. The standards, which specify performance criteria, test methods, and safety considerations for playgrounds, can be found in ASTM F1487. If you work in the playground or park industries, you know those are the standards that outline “best practices” for playground equipment, fencing, and safety surfacing.
In 1995, a group of 12 playground equipment manufacturers formed IPEMA to validate manufacturer compliance to the safety standards outlined in ASTM F1487. The original goals for IPEMA included:
Make playgrounds safer and reduce related injuries
Represent and serve a significant majority of manufacturers of play equipment
Provide members with timely, in-depth information on economic and governmental issues affecting the industry
Promote relationships with other related organizations to enhance the strength and credibility of the marketplace
IPEMA originally contracted with Detroit Testing Laboratory (DTL) to certify public-use playground equipment. In 2010, DTL sold the certification portion of their company to an international technical services company called TÜV SÜD America, which currently manages the IPEMA certification program.
What is involved in Certification?
IPEMA certification means first verifying a manufacturer’s facilities and procedures. This includes calibration procedures, test procedures, testing equipment, conducting a site inspection, and confirming that the manufacturer understands safe playground layout. Next, the manufacturer must provide their own documentation of testing and certifications to show compliance. This means filling out annual forms, conducting an annual facility review, and showing regular product testing.
In 1991, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission expanded their Handbook for Public Playground Safety to include types of surfacing and their respective fall heights. In response, IPEMA’s third-party testing expanded to include safety surfacing suppliers.
Testing surfacing materials means testing a product’s impact attenuation (shock absorbency). It also means specifying a “critical fall height,” which is the “maximum height from which a life-threatening head injury would not be expected to occur.”
TÜV SÜD America conducts on-site random sample testing of Poured-in-Place and other rubber surfaces. The company also oversees supplier inspections, quality control programs, customer service programs, and on-site observations of surfacing installations.
Other IPEMA Initiatives
IPEMA isn’t just about certifications. The organization has other helpful resources for parents, kids, community groups, schools, parks and recreation professionals, designers, and equipment manufacturers.
For example, IPEMA sponsors Voice of Play to help improve the quality and quantity of children’s play and playgrounds. The website has information about physical, social, emotional, and cognitive benefits of play. It also includes a resource kit for parents and a section to acquire answers from play industry experts.
Some of our No Fault products are IPEMA certified (No Fault Safety Surface, No Fault Bonded Rubber Mulch & No Fault Safety Tiles). Our professional installers get continuous training to ensure quality installations which meet and exceed ASTM standards and customer expectations. Got questions? Contact us today, and we’ll help!
A ribbon cutting ceremony for Sidney D. Torres Memorial Park took place on Monday, October 22, 2018 in Chalmette, Louisiana. It consists of 19 acres, and is the largest park in St. Bernard Parish. Community members and school children came to celebrate the grand opening of this new, exciting park that contains several playgrounds, a fitness zone workout area, and a concrete skate park.
Guy McInnis, St. Bernard Parish President, stated “We are impressed with the quality of the Little Tikes equipment and No Fault surfacing, which we installed under the playground and fitness equipment. The multiple colors of surfacing really give the playground added flair!”
The fitness zone contains 12 workout stations including a rowing machine, ab crunch station, pullup/pushup bars, and our shock absorbing No Fault Safety Surface.
The new Gridline Concrete Skate Park is another great addition to Sidney D Torres Park! It measures 150 feet x 50 feet, and has an 8-foot-deep bowl with multiple ledges.
If you are in the process of building a new playground or fitness area, No Fault Surfaces can help! Our rubber surfacing products and synthetic turf are IPEMA certified and designed to provide not only the utmost in safety, but will add greater aesthetic appeal to any play area. Contact us and our sales associates will be happy to assist you.
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – legendary Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw
Thanks to a new trend in playground design, older Americans are joining their grandkids on the playground and keeping “playtime” going strong well into their golden years.
Think about it: Most of the time, grandparents can be found sitting on the benches off to the side while the kids have all the fun. A play space that gets young and old active and involved means everyone gets in on the action. Sounds like a great idea, right?
A recent article in GOVERNING, an online publication which covers state and local government policy issues, says we’ll soon be seeing more playgrounds “where aging adults can participate alongside their children or grandchildren.” The article says outdoor activity spaces designed specifically for older people have become popular in Asia and Europe, whereas in the U.S., the approach seems to provide a shared play space where the young and old can be active and involved together.
Senior-Friendly Equipment
Playgrounds designed specifically for the young might include monkey bars, seesaws, slides, and jungle gyms for the kids. For the older folks, you’ll see low-impact exercise equipment such as elliptical machines, stationary bikes, and resistance equipment that can build strength. (Note: as we’ve talked about before, it’s important that adults stay off the equipment that’s intended for kids!) You’ll also find walking paths that encourage cardio-friendly strolls with the kids.
In other words, “age-integrated play” usually includes fitness stations aimed at people 60 and older near the children’s area or along walking paths nearby. We’re not talking weight benches among the monkey bars—the idea isn’t to turn grandpa into The Rock!
So what is the goal? As we’ll see, the benefits can be enormous.
Physical Benefits
Exercise is one of the foundations of a long healthy life. Seniors are at high risk for serious falls. Each year, more than one-third of people age 65 or older fall. Many of them suffer moderate to severe injuries (such as hip fractures) that can increase the possibility of a shorter lifespan.
Any exercise that sharpens reflexes, increases muscle strength, and improves flexibility can help prevent falls and related injuries. Since a fall can be physically and emotionally devastating for seniors, improving balance is crucial. Although recommend that the aging continue with activities that help develop their balance and maintain strength, falls cannot always be prevented. That is why it is so important to have a shock-absorbing and slip resistant surface like our No Fault Safety Surface covering the fitness area.
Large muscles support a person’s posture, contribute to the body’s metabolism, and can even minimize injuries in the event of a fall, so developing those muscles is important at any age.
The physical benefits include everyday benefits, too. Some outdoor fitness equipment can improve manual dexterity, making it easier for older folks to tie their shoes or open jars. It can help them increase their range of motion, making it easier to perform routine activities, like bending down and picking up objects they have dropped.
Other Benefits
Sure, older men and women need to stay active for their bodies’ sake, but they also need it for their social and mental health. Physical activity can increase confidence in older adults, giving them more control over their lives. Getting this activity in the fresh air and sunshine is better than doing it indoors, too.
Indoor gyms are not a bad idea, but sometimes seniors get discouraged when the gym is overcrowded by younger people who are more advanced in their workouts. The “no pressure” approach of outdoor exercise lets them approach fitness at their own pace.
Finally, combining fitness time with playtime for the little ones means spending quality time with the children in their lives. Good health and quality time with family—what could be more important?
Conclusion
Incorporating exercise equipment for seniors in your traditional playground design is a great way to help seniors set the example for a healthy, active lifestyle. It’s also a great way to encourage multigenerational play and quality time together outdoors.
Wherever adults and children gather to play, they are going to need a smooth, unitary, and slip-resistant surface like our No Fault Safety Surface. It’s ASTM F-1292 compliant, ADA approved for outdoor applications, and proven to provide fall protection up to 12 feet. Contact us today to learn how No Fault products can improve the appearance and safety of playgrounds for all ages.
There’s no doubt about it. Multiple studies have uncovered a correlation between play and academic achievement. Increased physical activity during the school day can help children’s attention, classroom behavior, and achievement test scores. In fact, children in Finland’s elementary schools — who get an average of 75 minutes of recess a day — consistently rank higher than U.S. children (who get 27 minutes of recess) in International Student Assessment Scores.
In an article in Playground Professionals, writer Mary Whitman asserted that children who learn through play are better at learning in the classroom, that play prevents obesity and diabetes, and that playgrounds teach children important lessons about social interactions.
Meanwhile, the decline of play is closely linked to ADHD, behavioral problems and stunted social, cognitive, and creative development.
It’s clear that playgrounds aren’t just places for horseplay. Here at No Fault Surfaces, we believe play is serious business! Here are a few of the often-overlooked benefits that come from playtime:
Sharpening Perception
Children develop behaviors based upon their senses. Through play, they discover their surroundings and how to navigate it. Sensory-rich playgrounds allow children of all abilities to integrate and develop perception. The more they play, the more they develop skills necessary to engage, change and impact the world around them. Narrow spaces, plus tactile, auditory, and visual experiences give children an understanding of the world around them through self-led exploration. So, encourage them with appropriate play equipment and activities.
Developing Motor Skills
Gross motor skills refer to skills that involve large muscle groups and the whole body. Climbing, walking, and jumping are all gross motor skills developed on the playground. Fine motor skills include smaller, controlled use of smaller muscles, such as gripping a ball or pulling a chain. Games, like kickball and four-square are great for developing motor coordination. They also help with critical thinking and problem-solving as children decide where to throw the ball or when it is time to run.
Solving Problems
Flexible thinking benefits children on the playground and in the classroom. Climbing equipment (such as ropes, monkey bars, and ladders) can help them build confidence and awareness as they learn how to use their bodies while thinking spatially. Climbing helps children think about the area around them as it encourages problem-solving and thinking ahead to “next steps.”
Working with Others
Free play is an essential part of playtime. As opposed to group participation in playground games, it gives children an opportunity to explore and make believe without structure. Free play builds communication skills and teamwork. Often, children invent games with ever-changing rules and objectives; these creative exercises also give them practice reading social cues from others. Sure, these skills are learned in group activities in the classroom, but on the playground, free play is driven by the children themselves, and that counts for a lot!
Building Self-Esteem
Overcoming challenges helps children develop a sense of accomplishment and self-esteem. Self-confidence comes from classroom achievement, but it also comes from the achievements made outdoors during playtime. These playground achievements range from resolving conflicts to reaching the top of a daunting play structure. As long as it’s safe (and surrounded with the appropriate safety surfacing), playground equipment challenges children and encourages them to take risks.
Playgrounds provide a place for children to work off energy, have fun, and interact with peers. It also gives them a safer learning environment to develop physical, social, emotional, and cognitive skills. At No Fault, we believe playgrounds should be places where children can safely take risks. We recommend that both indoor and outdoor play areas meet or exceed recommended national safety standards, and that the appropriate surfacing products are used to further promote safety.
