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It is essential to be aware of Critical Fall Height regulations when having safety surfacing installed at your school or park and the improtance of this. CFH is important to ensure that young people are safe when using play equipment. We will need to consider the height of any play equipment within the facility along with the existing surface which the flooring will be laid up to in order to determine the depth of surfacing required.
If you'd like more information on Critical Fall Height regulations or you are interested in having wetpour, rubber mulch or other safety surfaces installed, please fill in the contact box on the right.
The critical-fall-height is the thickness required for safety play surfacing to ensure that it absorbs the impact as required and lower the risk of injury. The children and kids need to be safe when playing from heights and the larger the platform height the deeper the depth of impact absorbing surface is required.
CFH is taken into account and can be related to British Standards such as bs en 1176. For details with regards to the bs en 1176 please click here https://www.playground-surfaces.com/en1176/ Our team can offer more details regarding the CFH and safety standards relating to this if necessary, so please do not hesitate to contact us.
Before any soft surfacing can be installed whether that is wetpour, rubber mulch or artificial grass, it is important that careful consideration is taken in regards to the CFH of the piece of equipment which could be slides, swings, roundabouts or large multi unit designs. CFH is based on the height at its highest point on the nearby playground equipment that a child could possibly stand on and fall.
CFH is tested by evaluating the shock absorbing qualities of soft surfaces. The testing involves dropping a metal headed object onto the playground flooring and then making a note of how fast and how hard the object hit from various heights. This is also known as the HIC testing which stands fro head injury criterion.
The Head Injury Criterion (HIC) is a measure of likelihood of head injury arising from an impact in this case the children playing in the park. This test method is not just used in play areas but also crash pads and motor cross tests. Normally the variable is derived from the measurements of an accelerometer mounted at the centre of gravity of a crash test dummy’s head, when the dummy is exposed to crash forces. Or on playgrounds is measured on the head impact against the safety flooring material.
The critical-fall-height table determines the depths of surfacing against the height of the platform fall height measurement. Depths of surfacing vary from surface options and sub base requirements because for example rubber mulch and grass generally are installed onto grass so do not need much thicker systems than 40mm or 50mm depth. However wetpour is installed onto solid porous bases and therefore can vary 40mm, 60mm up to 130mm in depth to meet the CFH of large multi units.
When installing a MUGA facility it is important to think about the different depths involved. You can learn more about MUGA surfacing and the MUGA surface depths here https://www.playground-surfaces.com/facility/muga/ Our team will offer you the very best installations and will make certain that the depth of surfacing is installed correctly. We can also complete the installation of the sub base too, meaning that you can be sure all levels are correct.
Bonded mulch protective flooring is manufactured out of recycled tyres. The material is shredded to make smaller bits that have a similar look and feel of wood chippings. We will then combine these pieces with glue and apply them out on top of the specified area. It is often applied for kids' recreational areas, as well as pathways and walkways in public places as well as the surrounding areas.
The rubber recreational chippings is often applied in a variety of depths to suit the properties that are required. CFH of your playground apparatus determines which depth of surfacing is required. The checks are completed to British Safety Standards. Recreational rubber mulch is extremely common around local assault courses and climbing features closest to you. Together with offering best safety components, the colour choices and specification are perfect for existing rural themes and timber apparatus. For more information regarding the CFH for rubber mulch, please contact us now using the contact form provided on this page.
The EPDM rubber flooring shall be installed as part of a two level program, the very first tier being an SRB impact cushion. A impact cushioning will reduce the possible damage that slipping over may cause children when playing on the floor. The last layer shall be the wet pour rubber surface which is set up above of shock pads to complete the construction process. This top level could be chosen being a number of different colours to offer your area the individuality.
The depth of wetpour safety surfacing is determined by a number of different factors including the existing surfacing and the height of the play equipment which would be on the facility. If you are unable to work out the depth of wetpour needed, please let us know the apparatus height and we will be able to work out the CFH for you.
There are a number of other surface choices including needlepunch and artificial grass - you can learn more about artificial turf here https://www.playground-surfaces.com/surfaces/grass/ These can have shockpads installed underneath in different depths in order to meet certain CFH requirements.
If you would like to have playground surfaces installed or you would like to find out more about Critical Fall Height regulations please fill in our contact box and we will get back to you shortly.
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