Some older timber playgrounds have been installed with little or no timber treatment.
It may surprise many of you that playgrounds were once installed using timber with little or no timber treatment. It seems a remarkably basic oversight when you think about the risks involved to our youngest citizens, yet it was often just “the way things were done back then”.
Fast forward to today and this untreated timber has begun to rot and weaken creating a dangerous play environment for children and it is necessary to ask; “How do you identify rotting timber posts?”
Clearly rotting timber posts should be identified as early as possible so that action can be taken to either pull out and replace the offending posts (not an easy job but doable in some situations) or the playground is removed and replaced with a new one.
To check for rotting posts simply pull back the ground cover, matting or woodchip around the post. Dig down a few centimetres to find wet wood. To check, have a screwdriver with you and use this to press against the wood. If the tip of the screwdriver embeds deep within the wood, then you are highly likely to have a problem with rotting posts.
Generally speaking, if you have one rotting post then you will have more throughout the playground.
Rotten posts structurally compromise the playground and, depending on how bad it is and how many posts are rotten, the playground should be closed to children playing on it so remediation work can be carried out. Park Supplies & Playgrounds recommend regular playground safety audits. These will identify any rotten posts before they become a bigger problem and recommend a solution.
