Wood Chips & Engineered Wood Fiber Do Not Meet ASTM F1292 Critical Fall Height Playground Requirements 

With cold temperatures still in many parts of the country, kids still spend time outside on the playground playing in the cold winter months. While the spring and summer months are the most popular time for outdoor play, playgrounds are often used by children all year round. In many areas that can mean playgrounds are in used in all four seasons, dealing with snow, sleet, rain, sun, freezing temperatures, high winds.

During the different weather seasons playground safety surfaces must be able to withstand the outside weather conditions. The surface should always remain soft to cushion a child’s fall, no matter the weather because 79% of playground injuries occur as the result of a fall in which the surfacing material was inadequate. Unfortunately, not all playground surfacing materials are designed to keep kids safe, and certain weather elements such as freezing temperatures which increases the chance for head injury. With these low temperatures, a playground safety surface made of wood mulch or engineered wood fiber will not provide children with the proper fall height protection required to avoid a serious injury and should never be used on the playground. 

Wood Mulch & Engineered Wood Fiber are 2 of the most dangerous products you can use for playground surfacing. These unsafe products absorb and retain water, and when temperatures fall, the water freezes. That means that playground surface made from wood mulch or engineered wood fiber can literally be frozen solid, providing no fall protection exposing children to major risk of head injury. This is compounded if the playground doesn’t allow for proper drainage. Water can collect within the wood mulch and freeze and remain frozen even when the top layer has thawed in the spring time. 

The Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends that a playground safety surface provide sufficient head impact protection for the equipment on site. The playground safety surface must provide a minimal risk of a critical brain injury if a child were to fall from the highest point on the playground equipment. According to the CPSC and the ASTM F1292 test, the maximum allowable score a playground surface can receive is a Head Injury Criterion (HIC) of 1,000. At a HIC of 1,000, there is a 2 percent chance of death and an 8 percent chance of a critical brain injury. A HIC of 0 results in no injury, the lower the number the better.

Head impact testing was conducted per ASTM F1292 standards on the wood mulch & engineered wood fiber at playgrounds when the ambient temperature was at 12 degrees. When frozen wood mulch was tested, it surpassed the 1,000 mark from as low as 2 feet. At just under 4′ the HIC was 1,800, which correlates to a 10% chance for death and a 45% chance of a critical brain injury after a head impact.

So what are the playground safety surfacing alternatives instead of wood chips or engineered wood fiber that can withstand the weather elements and will not absorb water and freeze? Playgrounds using FallZone Safety Surfacing playground safety surfacing systems like the FallZone Poured-in-Place playground surfacing system installed with proper drainage will offer a consistent fall-height protection regardless of weather conditions. 

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