Playground inspections are necessary when you want to secure the safety of your playground users, especially toddlers and crawlers who don't know to distinguish between safe and unsafe equipment. Your playground is play space for them, and they should be able to go about having fun without risk.

To start with, before you open your playground to the public, have a certified playground inspector conduct a Playground Compliance Audit, which is the first of playground inspections that you need to do for your play space. A compliance audit ensures that your playground is within the established standards and guidelines of Australian Standards. Ideally, this should precede any final payments you need to make to your playground equipment supplier/ installer.

Then, there are the regular playground inspections that should be conducted.

Foremost here is Comprehensive Inspection, which should be conducted at least once a year. This should be done twice a year for playgrounds with heavy user traffic. For this type of playground inspection, the goal is to ensure the overall safety of playground equipment, surface and foundation, particularly if repairs and replacements have been made, and if the Australian Standards have implemented new safety guidelines. Comprehensive Inspections should only be done by a certified playground inspector.

Next is Operational Inspections. These types of playground inspections should be done at least once each quarter. For heavy traffic playgrounds, these should be done once a month. The focus of these inspections are the moving parts of your playground equipment, as in swings and rockers. Professional inspectors would have a checklist of items for assessment. Any issues will be included in a report, which would list necessary corrective action.

Then, there are routine inspections. This type of playground inspections can be done by playground staff or administrators, as long as they've consulted with a certified playground inspector. These inspections should be done at least once a week; it should be done everyday for heavy traffic playgrounds. Visual inspection is key here. The inspector should watch out for equipment hazards and vandalism. Any findings should be reported and fixed right away.

Playground inspections are crucial to your users' safety. While compliance with inspections and the guidelines set by Australian Standards aren't really required, this can be the big difference between playgrounds that attract happy families and those that are bound to be abandoned and unused. Inspections assure your users that you have their well-being in mind.