Playground maintenance needs assessment: initial steps to maintain child's play. (Playgrounds).

To the outsider, playgrounds seem like universal toylands that you set up and can walk away from -- maintenance-free. Not so. Even the best playground should be regularly maintained and reviewed. For playground maintenance to be effective, maintenance personnel must have a good understanding of five essential factors. Why is maintenance needed? What has to be maintained? Why is specific maintenance needed? When is maintenance needed? How should playgrounds be maintained? While it is certainly desirable that playgrounds be attractive, maintaining their aesthetic value remains a secondary concern to safe and proper function.

Identify Working Parts

Before maintenance factors can be considered, you need to first look at the equipment as an entity with a "dual personality." Each piece of playground equipment is inherently a dynamic thing -- it can be a static structure of materials, or a mechanical kinetic device, or both.

As a structure, the equipment or apparatus has static characteristics affected by the combination of all its parts: the footer, which provides a sturdy supporting base for the structure; the frame, which is constructed of load-bearing components, such as posts, joists, beams and braces; and surrounds, such as walls, panels, canopies and decks. These are held in place by fasteners such as bolts, couplings, clamps, hooks, anchors, pins and screws. The static attributes that are affected include stability, strength, form, balance and structural integrity.

As a motion device, some equipment has kinetic components that swing, rock, rotate, pivot, bend, twist, undulate or roll. These are suspended by flexible linked chains, cables or other suspension devices. They could rotate with friction-reducing bearings, axles, pivot pins or rotors. Or they might rock or undulate with springs, or roll on wheels or trolleys. The kinetic attributes that are affected include flexibility, size, weight and the need for lubrication. Additionally, there are other components to play equipment that must be maintained. These include safety provisions such as hand-grips, safety railing and protective barriers as well as activity provisions such as slide chutes, poles, swing seats and manipulative devices.

Prior to doing a comprehensive needs assessment, all these parts need to be identified and itemized. An excellent source of information is the apparatus' complete parts list provided by the manufacturer. This can be supplemented by schematic diagrams or installation guides also provided by most manufacturers. For maintenance purposes, it is very important to determine the material each item is made of, because each material has specific maintenance needs. Playground equipment is generally made from different metals, wood and engineered wood products, synthetic polymers or vulcanized natural rubber. On many pieces of playground equipment, one or more types of metal will be used. Steel, aluminum, zinc, iron and brass are common examples. The presence of other metals, such as lead and mercury, is detrimental and undesirable. Metals can wear, bend, dent, break, warp, or corrode. Only if the metal is ferric, such as iron or steel, is corrosion called "rust."

Some playground equipment is manufactured of wood lumber or engineered wood products such as plywood, oriented strand board, glulam and laminated veneer lumber. Depending upon the product and a number of environmental factors, wood may wear, splinter, warp, burn or scorch, crack, check, split, decay or be infected with mold, mildew and subject to insect or animal damage.

In early February 2002, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced an industry decision to cease production and use of pressure-treated wood that contains arsenic. This action will not only encourage the use of new alternatives in wood production, but will also serve to protect play users from the dangers of a potent chemical. According to the new EPA regulations, chromated copper arsenate (CCA) chemicals will no longer be allowed after January 2004.

There are many synthetic materials used in today's playgrounds. They are often commonly referred to as "plastics," but are technically designated as polymers -- nylon, polycarbonate, polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride, for example. Most polymers are thermoplastic and can warp or melt when exposed to high temperatures. Thermoset polymers that are molded, however, won't melt, but will scorch if exposed to high temperature. Additionally, certain polymers may wear, break, crack, become brittle, fade or undergo UV degradation. Vulcanized natural rubber can wear, crack, break, de-bond or undergo UV degradation.

Each material requires a specific maintenance technique because its damage or deterioration will differ. The correct analysis of the material and the problem must be made. This is called the Playground Maintenance Needs Assessment.

Get Playground Maintenance Priorities Straight

The fundamental purposes of playground maintenance are safety, functional utility and operation; sanitation, hygiene and aesthetics. The most important reason for playground maintenance is to ensure that users are safe. When equipment is allowed to deteriorate, crucial parts can malfunction or break, creating a hazardous condition. Children are not deterred by "broken" equipment, but may attempt to use it regardless of its condition. Damaged equipment is more likely to break, but what's more, a child may try to compensate for the damage and use the equipment in an unusual or unanticipated way. This would place them in danger of an accident. Also, the presence of extraneous or foreign items, such as suspended jump ropes or leashes, broken glass, empty cans and hypodermic needles, constitute safety hazards to users.

Similarly, when a piece of motion equipment no longer operates as it was designed to, due to the failure of a suspension link, a rotational device or a roller, it may occupy a large area of the playground without providing any play value. Examples include empty swing frames, immobile merry-go-rounds or track rides with immovable trolleys. Some devices and components on playground equipment require periodic replacement of parts, or lubrication to reduce wear and corrosion.

Sanitation and hygienic conditions on the playground are also maintenance concerns. A playground with equipment in full compliance of the ASTM F1487 standard can present a public health hazard if it contains toxic or unwholesome conditions. Typical examples include the presence of animal or human feces, infestations of noxious animal, insect or vegetative pests, and contamination by toxic chemicals.

A Comprehensive Maintenance Needs Assessment

The function of the maintenance needs assessment is to identify the type of deterioration or problematic condition, determine the extent and severity of structural or functional damage relative to the use of each material, and the probable consequences of the problem. It is best to record your findings and conclusions using a manual or computerized check sheet or data form. Be specific. For example, where there is rust, it is not sufficient to just record the presence of metallic corrosion. It is essential for proper maintenance that the inspector notes the following:

* Location of corrosion -- Is it on footers, outside frame posts, inside frame posts, on beams or on sheet metal? Is the corroded item a fastener, bearing, bushing, pivot pin, spring or wheel? The location and function of the corroded part will affect maintenance decisions. This can be determined by visual, audio and tactile investigation.

* Type of metal corroded -- Is it high- or low-alloy steel, aluminum, zinc, brass, cast iron, copper or other metal? This is determined by appearance and hardness tests.

* Type of coating on the metal surface -- Does the corroded metal have powder coating, hot-dip zinc coating, electroplated zinc galvanization, enamel paint, vinyl or some other protective coating? There may be catalytic chemical reactions or concealed corrosion underneath.

* Type of metallic corrosion -- It may be external surface oxidation, galvanic corrosion, pitting, crevice corrosion, deposit corrosion, weld decay, fretting corrosion, internal oxidation, exfoliation, "white rust" or microbial corrosion. Each type is indicative of a different problem.

* Extent of corrosion -- Is the corrosion localized in a limited area or generalized over a large portion of the part?

* Severity of corrosion -- Is the corrosion evident only by pin-holes, by shallow or deep pitting, by blistering or scaling, by tubercles and nodules, by peeling, or by substrata embrittlement, porosity or cavities? This will determine the type and degree of maintenance needed.

* Contiguous contact surfaces -- Is the corrosion in contact with other metallic parts? If so, what is the other metal, the function of the item in contact and its condition? This is an important observation, especially for galvanic corrosion. Does the metal touch soil or other highly acidic or caustic materials?

* Environmental and use conditions- What are the micro-environmental conditions near the corroded item? (Especially regarding salinity, humidity, skin contact by users and abrasions).

* Maintenance priority -- Does the corrosion presently or potentially significantly effect the safety of users, the utility of the item, the health of users, or the attractiveness of the equipment? Can realistic probabilities be determined for such things as: complete equipment collapse due to this corrosion; breakage of a play component on the equipment; inability of the equipment to move in the manner for which it was constructed; infection or bad bleeding from a cut caused by the corroded part; increased unsightliness?

The importance of each of these issues is interrelated with one or more other concerns. This example is for metal corrosion; similar maintenance needs assessments must be done for all other forms of damage or deterioration.

In addition to how to perform a comprehensive maintenance needs assessment, the new National Playground Maintenance Service Training Course reveals basic maintenance procedures and repair techniques, maintenance schedules, recommended maintenance supplies, tools and equipment and help resources for special problems. The text for the course is Maintaining Child's Play. The course will be offered by NRPA through the National Playground Safety Institute and an executive summary session will be offered at the 2002 NRPA Annual Congress in Tampa, Florida. Full programs will be offered at venues around the country soon thereafter. Look for scheduling announcements in future issues of Parks & Recreation. They will also be posted on the NPSI page of the NRPA website (www.nrpa.org).

"Playground Maintenance Needs Assessment: Initial Steps to Maintain Child's Play" (page 84) author Monty Christiansen, CPRP, CPSI, is an associate professor of recreation and park management in the School of Hotel, Restaurant and Recreation Management at Penn State University. He has served as president of the National Society of Park Resources (NSPR) and was twice elected to the NSPR Board of Directors.