Synthetic Turf
Synthetic turf is a great surfacing option for playground. It looks great, and when installed with padding underneath it can offer protection against falls up to 18 feet. Synthetic Turf doesn’t require a lot of maintenance and will look great over many years of use. A few people have reservations about synthetic turf mainly because of the rubber infill used in sports fields. We don’t use rubber crumbs in turf that needs infill Instead, we use rounded sand as infill. This is clean, play sand that gets lodged at the bottom of the synthetic yarn, weighing the turf down and keeping the yarn vertical, which is the strongest position for the strands. It also keeps the system cooler and safer and prolongs its life.
Synthetic turf is also a great alternative to grass in areas where it is hard to grow. Most jurisdictions do not allow spraying play area with chemicals to protect the kids from exposure. Synthetic turf solves that problem and provides an aesthetically pleasing alternative. The turf we use meets or exceeds all safety standards set forward by ASTM and CPSC, including toxicity and flammability standards.
Finally, compared to other types of surfaces, synthetic turf is very budget friendly due to its low maintenance and the fact that it performs better, and is easy to patch in the event of vandalism. The only time synthetic turf become costly is when installed on an irregular shaped area that has playground equipment with dozens of footings. The cutting and seaming required makes the install labor intensive and increases the install price. Irregular shaped areas also create more waste in material. Since synthetic turf comes in 15′ wide rolls (much like a carpet), it has to be laid out in way that all yarn has to be facing the same directly, which limits that number of possibilities that carpet is laid out. When working with an area of multiples of 15 feet, there is little waste.