scope:

This Standard is intended to promote positive play experiences arising from the anticipated use of playspaces and equipment to protect a child 18 months to 14 years, as far as possible.

While infants may attend a playspace with their parents, they usually do not actively use the equipment. By 18 months, however, they are walking and running, and many are ready and interested in exploring the playspace's facilities.

Many preschool children are now in daycare settings and are taken daily to playgrounds by their caregivers. All the general considerations for a playspace apply for preschoolers but special attention should be paid to their developmental needs and to the scale of the equipment.

Since this Standard addresses the play needs of the child, it covers a wide variety of playspaces and equipment.

This Standard contains recommendations on technical requirements and practices applicable to the design, manufacture/construction, installation, maintenance, and inspection of children's playspaces and equipment for use in public playspaces.

This Standard applies to new playspaces and equipment and to existing playspaces and equipment undergoing renovation.

The Standard covers all equipment that could be used by children at play, although this equipment may not be produced for that purpose (eg, a steam engine, a fire engine, a boat, drainage tiles).

Sport, fitness, or gymnasium environments arc excluded. Swimming pools and slides that end in water and whirlpools arc also excluded. Homemade or child-constructed play equipment and playspaces, including Adventure Playgrounds, arc excluded. Play equipment intended for private backyard use and for amusement parks is also excluded.

The values given in SI (metric) units are the standard. The values given in parentheses are for information only.