Thankfully, the days are long gone when parents would just cobble together a tree house, wendy house or play house in their garden made from splintering scrap wood and let the children climb all over it.
Modern safety concerns have put pay to many such amateurish efforts. This is a good thing and purchasing a superior quality playhouse from a children's playhouse company will go a long way to ensuring your childs safety when using outdoor play equipment.
Reasonable Approach to Children's Playhouse Safety
Ensuring the safety of children while they're playing in a garden is often a simple task and a good sense approach works well. Children shouldn't be so over protected that they're unable to enjoy themselves and they're always going to get bumped, scraped and bruised in innocent play. But it does make sense to protect them from the most obvious and avoidable dangers.
With a play house, tree house, wooden castle, fort or wendy house in the garden this means making a point that the structure itself is safe, that any stairs or other play equipment are robust enough to take the weight of children and that there aren't any nasty sharp edges that can tear into the child's skin.
Stableness of Your Wendy House
With reference to the stability of a wendy house or log cabin play house there are two philosophies. One is to make the construction strong enough to take an excessive of weight, in which case it needs to either be securely pinned down, or it should be heavy and stable enough to withstand being knocked over. The second approach is for the structure to be very lightweight so that it can turn over but won’t trap or hurt a child. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with either approach, the lightweight approach is probably better for babies and the robust approach more suitable for toddlers and older ones. The real risk is with a structure that falls between these two extreme points– one that's heavy enough to hurt a child but not so heavy that it will remain erect of its own accordance.
British Safety Standard Strict Rules
The applicable safety legislation covering a toy such as a play house, outdoor play equipment or wendy house to use in a garden is British Standard EN71 which is aligned with the applicable European Standard. This addresses many aspects of toy construct and use but the relevant areas for a wendy houses, play castles, forts or play houses are as follows:
Flammability – the structure may be combustable but there will be time to get out of it.
Poisonous Substance– no dangerous substances such as lead paint have been used in the manufacturing process.
Activity toys – a whole section covering this type of toy particularly, which considers parts that protrude, stableness and areas where children's clothing can be trapped.
Mechanical – making a point that no part can asphyxiate, be swallowed, and stab or snare a child.
Compounds – set boundaries for materials used in manufacture which could cause problems if licked or consumed.
So as long as the play house or wendy house that you're considering of buying has achieved this criterion then you'll be able to rest assured that your child will be as safe as any other time while at play in the garden.
Purchasing from a trusted and respected children's play house company in the first instance, is your childs best protection from play related injuries. As they'll already be adhering to strict safety standards during planning and building, ensuring stability and child safety and will have also taken great care in the construction materials used.
Outdoor play equipment is a delightful and essential part of childhood. Let your children enjoy the garden safely by purchasing a well made and safely constructed playhouse or wendy house from a specialist and reputable garden play equipment company.
