Ask a caretaker what a wet autumn week costs and the answer arrives quickly: closed gates, muddy clothes, and three days lost while the ground recovers. That arithmetic repeats every year, and it is usually what pushes a school or council to price a synthetic play surface.
We build artificial grass for playgrounds on our own tufting and coating line, so we read the same numbers as the people specifying them. On most artificial turf installations the starting point is fall height, drainage and cleaning hours, and colour comes last. Those same figures decide whether a synthetic surface beats grass, bark or loose fill on a given site.
Why Schools Rethink Grass for Playgrounds
Natural grass is generous for about half the year. Rain turns goalmouths and slide exits into mud, dry spells bake the ground hard, and both states reduce the hours children can use the space.
Safety data explains why the surface gets so much attention. A figure quoted from the United States consumer product safety handbook puts falls from equipment at 79% of playground injuries. More than 200,000 children are treated for playground injuries every year. Half of those injuries occur at schools and sporting facilities.
Anyone weighing artificial grass for playgrounds against grass is comparing three things at once. Time given back matters first, then how predictably the surface behaves when a child lands on it. Labour removed from the weekly budget comes third.
Our playground artificial grass builds are specified around those three questions, which is why the conversation usually starts with equipment height rather than with a swatch.
Fall maths begins at the highest point a child can reach on each piece of equipment. The whole build above the subgrade carries that rating: turf, shock layer, infill, base and edging working together. That single rating is why specifiers reach for artificial grass for playgrounds instead of loose fill.
Impact is measured, not judged by eye. Industry tests track the Head Injury Criterion and peak deceleration on impact. Third-party reports commonly quote a Head Injury Criterion at or below 1000, with Gmax at or below 200.
The shock layer does most of the work. Published installer mappings put a 25 mm pad at protection up to about 1.4 m, and a 50 mm pad at about 2.8 m. Another example pairs a 35 to 45 mm pad with an eight-foot fall height, and market thickness runs from 20 mm to 65 mm.
Facing a Fall Height You Cannot Match?
An unmatched rating stalls handover. We tuft playground pile from 30 to 50 mm, then send a 20 cm sample with the fall-height sheet.
How Pile Height and Infill Change Impact
Pile height sets the look and the feel underfoot, but it is not the safety switch many buyers assume it is. Absorbing that fall is mainly the job of the layer underneath, and very tall fibres flatten faster where children run every break.
Guidance for schools puts the sensible pile band between 20 mm and 35 mm, with higher fall zones often specified from 30 to 50 mm. The lower part of that band suits early-years areas, where short, dense fibre stays upright and clean.
Ask for density and face weight alongside it, since two rolls can share the same pile height and still behave very differently underfoot.
Infill is the second half of the system. It supports the yarn, spreads load and gives surface stability, so when it compacts the surface loses resilience and with it some of its impact performance.