How to Inspect Your Indoor Play Structure

A commercial play structure is a piece of equipment in continuous use by the least careful users imaginable. It will loosen, wear and accumulate small damage — not because it was built badly, but because that is what happens to anything children use every day.

Almost all of it is trivial to fix if you find it early. Most of it becomes expensive, or worse, if you do not. What follows is a practical routine for keeping on top of it.

One thing to establish first. This is general guidance, not a replacement for the inspection requirements that come with your specific equipment. Your manufacturer's documentation, your insurer, and your state or local licensing requirements all govern, and where they differ from anything here, they win. If you do not have your manufacturer's inspection guidance, request it — you should have received it at handover.

Daily: the opening walk-through

Before children go in, walk the structure. This takes a few minutes and catches most of what matters.

Look for anything that has come loose or come off. Bolt caps, padding, netting attachments, trim. Anything detached is both a hazard in itself and a sign that something underneath has moved.

Look for tears, splits and exposed material. Padding that has split, vinyl that has torn, netting with a broken strand, any point where a hard edge or a fastener has become exposed through a soft surface. Exposed hardware is the single most important thing to catch on a daily check.

Check the surfacing. Impact surfacing displaced, compressed, curled at the edges, or missing in the high-traffic areas beneath slide exits and climbing entries.

Check what does not belong. Debris in tubes, objects wedged into gaps, food, drink, anything a child has posted somewhere it cannot easily be retrieved from.

Confirm the space around it is still clear. Fall zones have a way of filling up with furniture, storage, signage and party equipment over the course of a busy week. That clearance is a safety specification, not a layout preference.

Weekly: the closer look

Once a week, go slower and go inside.

Climb or crawl through the structure the way a child does, on every level. Things that are invisible from outside are obvious from inside — a netting panel pulling away at a corner, a padded surface that has gone soft in one spot, a join that has begun to separate.

Check fasteners and connections. Anything that can be reached by hand should be checked by hand for movement. You are not tightening everything to specification, you are noticing what has changed since last week.

Check the moving and high-wear elements. Slide surfaces and joins, entry and exit points, anything on a hinge or a pivot, and the interactive or electronic components if you have them.

Look at the wear pattern. Every structure develops one. Knowing where yours concentrates tells you where to look first, and a change in the pattern is worth understanding — it often means children have found a new way to use something.

Monthly: the detailed check

Once a month, add the things that change slowly enough to miss weekly.

Netting and cable tension throughout. Anchor points and how the structure meets the floor. Padding compression — padding that has lost resilience still looks fine and no longer performs, which makes it one of the harder things to spot. Signage: still present, still legible, still accurate about age and height limits.

This is also the point to review your incident log. Three minor reports in the same area of the structure in a month is a pattern, and patterns are worth investigating before they become something else.

Annually: the professional inspection

An annual inspection by someone qualified covers what an operator cannot reasonably assess — structural integrity, standards compliance as equipment ages, and the components that need specialist knowledge to evaluate.

Your options are usually the manufacturer who built the structure, an independent certified playground safety inspector, or whoever your insurer or licensing body specifies. Check your policy and your licensing requirements before assuming a general inspection satisfies them; some require an inspector holding a particular certification, and an inspection by the wrong person is an expense that does not count.

Book it at the same point each year rather than when you remember. Annual inspections that float tend to become eighteen-month inspections.

Keep a log

Write it down. A simple dated record of each check, what was found, and what was done about it.

This matters for three reasons. It turns individual observations into patterns you can act on. It is the documentation your insurer or licensing body will ask for. And it is what protects you and your staff if an incident is ever questioned — a facility with a consistent inspection record is in an entirely different position from one relying on memory.

It does not need to be sophisticated. A clipboard by the entrance works. A shared document works. What matters is that it is consistent and dated.

When you find something

Sort it into three responses.

Close it now. Exposed hardware, a structural component that has moved, anything a child could become entangled in, any damage you cannot fully assess. Close the affected area or the whole structure, and take the decision quickly — the cost of an unnecessary closure is trivial next to the alternative.

Fix it soon. Loose fittings, minor tears, displaced surfacing, missing bolt caps. Not immediately dangerous, and they get worse. Set a deadline and hold it.

Log and monitor. Cosmetic wear, fading, marks. Note it and watch whether it changes.

When you are unsure which category something falls into, treat it as the more serious one and call the manufacturer who built the structure. Most will answer a question like this at no cost, and it is worth knowing who to call before you need to — find the contact and keep it with your inspection log rather than looking for it during a closure.

The part that gets forgotten

Whoever opens the facility is the person doing the daily check, and that is often a junior staff member with a long list of opening tasks.

Show them what to look for, on the actual structure rather than on paper. Ten minutes of walking someone through it produces far better checks than any laminated list, because they will have seen what exposed hardware and compressed padding actually look like. Do it again with every new hire, and make it clear that closing part of the structure is a decision they are authorised to make without asking permission first.