The winter weather can be difficult on school and public playgrounds, as they are constantly exposed to damaging weather and are often neglected while everyone spends most time indoors. To help keep public and school playgrounds survive the winter and increase their longevity, here are some tips for winter playground maintenance.

Prevention Is Key

Your first step will be to prepare for any possible damage rather than wait until something goes wrong. After all, the best kind of maintenance is the kind you don’t have to do at all. In order to protect your playground equipment during the winter, you’ll want to do a full inspection at least twice a year—before the winter hits and again in the spring. This concerns looking for loose hardware, making sure loose playground items like balls are gathered up and stored away for the winter, and giving your equipment a thorough cleaning to ensure it’s in the best possible condition and there are no lurking issues already present.

If the playground features anything like canopies, make sure those are taken down and stored away as well. While they are typically made to withstand extreme winds, they can’t support a heavy snowfall.

Surfacing Maintenance

Before a snowfall, communities and school administrations should clean up and regrade the surface filling of the playground. This filler includes materials like wood chips or rubber mulch – loose materials that be kicked around and displaced by heavy foot traffic. Next, inspect the perimeter to make sure there has been no damage or holes in your rubber playground edging so that the refurbished filling doesn’t spill out of the playground.

Surfacing Protection

As maintenance continues throughout the winter months, don’t use anything corrosive, like salt or sand, on the playground surfacing. You’ll only be damaging the playground yourself. Once it snows enough that it needs to be cleared, use plastic shovels over metal ones so that the edging or equipment isn’t punctured in the process. Lastly, avoid using a snowblower if possible, as they are capable of damaging playground surfacing that can be very expensive to repair.

With these little tips for winter playground maintenance in your arsenal, your school or park playground will have a much longer lifespan and you’ll avoid causing any harmful damage from your own efforts.