Educational

Slide Pads are like Light Bulbs...

They’ve got a few different names: slide pads, water entry landing pads, safety pads, crash pads, and slide exit pads. We can probably agree that the cushion at the end of a slide is not the most exciting part of your park. In fact, slide pads are a lot like light bulbs: you only think about them when they stop working.

Winning Solutions: A Brief History of the Kelly Ogle Memorial Safety Award

Despite our spring snow flurry, we’re excited about the water park season just around the corner. This will be our first season with the Kelly Ogle Memorial Safety Award under our belt and we wanted to take a minute to showcase some of the winners from previous years.

Splash Pads Need Safety Surfacing: Part 3

From the beginning, splash pads have often been built adjacent to, or even on top of, public pools and wading pools, and so they have traditionally maintained the hard concrete “floors” of these pools. However, the practice of treating splash pads as a literal extension of the pool category is both inaccurate and dangerous. Even if splash pads began in the pool and fountain space, they have developed beyond those categories and now require a different set of safety regulations.

Splash Pads Need Safety Surfacing: Part 2

Playgrounds and splash pads are used in remarkably similar ways: children climb, run, and jump as they interact with play features. The major difference between splash pads and dry playgrounds is the presence of water. In other words, splash pads are simply playgrounds + water. As a result, they share some similar safety concerns.

Splash Pads: The Non-pools

Ultimately, splash pad safety standards should be determined not by superficial similarities to pools, but by considering how people actually use splash pads. Basically, kids treat splash pads as playgrounds. They walk, run, and jump on splash pads, they play tag on splash pads. The primary mode of movement around a splash pad is definitely not swimming, and the primary risk is a slip-and-fall injury, not drowning.

Splash Pad Safety and Hydroplaning

Hydroplaning occurs on splash pads when there is simply too much water accumulating on the surface of the splash pad. When this happens, children (and adults) are no longer running on the ground, they're running on water. And just as a puddle can cause a car to hydroplane, this water can get between your feet and the ground and send you flying.

Splash Pads: What's in a name?

Here at Life Floor, we think a lot about splash pads. We design and manufacture splash pad surfacing; we play on splash pads, too, and sometimes, we even invite our kids. As our involvement in aquatics has grown, we began to notice something unusual: no one seems entirely sure what to call these things. There’s actually a pretty wide variety of names, including: splash pad, splash deck, spray ground, aquatic play pad, rain deck, spray deck, spray pad, spray pool, and spray zone.

Five Reasons To Ditch Concrete Pool Decks

Without cement, the world would be a very different place. The Romans used it to build and maintain their empire, it remains the material of choice for deep footings or foundations, and it simply can’t be beat if you’re building a hydroelectric dam. However, if you’re installing a pool and not, say, recreating the Pantheon in your backyard, there are better options available. Here are five good reasons to pick something other than concrete or cement for your in-ground pool deck.

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10 Tips and Tricks to Help You Design the Best Pool For Your Space

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Choose a pool that fits your personality and lifestyle: Perhaps you’d rather have a winding, lazy river in which to relax, or perhaps you'd rather spend your pool-time swimming laps. Infinity pools are especially beautiful and can compliment waterfront views, while adding slides or diving boards make your pool more entertaining and kid-friendly. In general, think about how you would like to use your pool and how you will realistically use it the most, and try to combine the two to fit your lifestyle.

Five Ways To Make Your Splash Pad Stand Out

Splash pads and spraygrounds are one of the few water features that show up not only in water parks, but also in municipal parks and even in private residences. Getting a sprayground to stand out against the competition can be tricky, but here are five simple ways to make guests' experience memorable for all the right reasons.