Anyone use rubber mulch for there play areas? Do you like it or no? We are thinking of using it and wondered what your opinions were!
Unregistered 03:08 AM 04-13-2014
I am working in a center that has this. It is soft, so that is nice. The kids throw it-but they throw wood chips too. Our kids dig in it and fill containers with it. It seems fine for this, but it isn't a nice, natural material. I don't know if handling all that rubber is good for kids.
I've seen babies with it in their mouth. I work with the 4-5's, but a few days ago the babies were outside with us and I saw a baby in a bouncer with something in its mouth. I was holding another toddler and sitting on the ground. I yelled and another teacher ran over. It turns out a toddler had piled a bunch of rubber chips on the tray. Again, this could happen with wood chips.
It seems to heat up the playground-all that BLACK and the actual material gets warmer than wood chips. I'm worried as the weather gets warmer our play space will really get HOT! It's a somewhat small play area. We have no green space. We don't have much shade. We are also closed in with buildings around us, so not much air movement.
This wouldn't happen in a nice open yard.
It gets dragged in because it has fibers that that get caught on clothing.
Our whole yard is this stuff. I think it would be great under equipment in a localized area.
If I had my own center I would probably purchase for under a smaller area, as it is very soft and has to have great impact quality.
Michael 02:23 PM 04-13-2014
butterfly 08:51 AM 04-14-2014
I have rubber mulch under my swingset and wood mulch under/around my other play items: playhouse, sandbox, etc. I wish I had money to replace one or the other. Having 1/2 of each is a PITA. It's constantly getting mixed. I just put landscape timbers around my swingset to offer more of a barrier to try to hold it in it's area....
I like that the rubber doesn't disintegrate like the wood mulch tends to do. But it's more of a hassle raking it out of the grass when it gets kicked out of the swingset area.
It is NOT as soft as you would think it would be. It's made out of old tires so some of the pieces have the tire cords/wires hanging out of them.
It does come in several colors.
It does get much hotter than wood mulch or probably any other ground cover material.
It's quite expensive.
If I did it over again, I'm not so sure I'd choose the rubber again. However, the parents do like it and have the idea that it's safer so that's worth a lot in my book...