About Playbright
An independent reference on playgrounds: safety standards, surfacing, equipment, cost, accessibility and maintenance.
Short answer
Playbright is an independent reference site about playgrounds. It explains what US playground safety guidance and standards require, what surfacing and equipment cost, and how to plan, buy, inspect and maintain a play area. It is not a manufacturer, installer, certifying body or standards organization.
On this page
What Playbright is
Playbright is a reference site about playgrounds: how they are designed, what the safety guidance actually requires, what the materials cost, and how to keep a play area working after it opens.
It exists because the information is fragmented. The main US guidance document is free but long. The consensus standards that inspectors work against are paid documents. Accessibility requirements sit in a separate body of federal law. Cost information mostly comes from people selling something. Somebody planning one playground, once, has to assemble all of that from scratch.
Who it is for
- Parents and homeowners choosing, siting and maintaining a backyard playset.
- Schools, PTAs, churches and childcare operators planning a play area on a budget, usually for the first time.
- Park and facilities staff who inherited a site and have to inspect, maintain and eventually replace it.
- Designers, landscape architects and committees who need the constraints before they draw.
What it covers
Nine subject areas, listed in full on the topics index: playground safety, surfacing, equipment, backyard playsets, planning and cost, inclusive play, inspection and maintenance, play value and design, and research and data. There are also free calculators and checklists and a glossary of the vocabulary that appears in specifications and inspection reports.
The principles behind the pages
- Name the source. Every requirement is attributed to the document it comes from, with the edition or year stated.
- Separate law, standard and opinion. The ADA Standards are law for covered entities. The CPSC handbook is guidance. ASTM standards are voluntary consensus documents that become binding by adoption or by contract. These are not the same thing and pages do not blur them.
- Ranges, not false precision. Costs are given as ranges with a year and a basis, because installed prices vary with region, site, season and project size.
- No brand recommendations. No page names a preferred manufacturer, product, vendor or installer.
- Say what is uncertain. Where the evidence is thin or contested, pages say so rather than picking a side and sounding confident.
How pages are kept current
Standards are revised on multi-year cycles and cost data moves faster than that. Pages carry the date they were last updated, and the edition of any standard they describe. How we research explains the sourcing process, editorial standards sets out the rules the pages are written to, and corrections is how to tell us something is wrong or out of date.
If you are new to the site, start here routes you to the right section by situation.
Frequently asked questions
Does Playbright sell or install playground equipment?
No. Playbright does not manufacture, sell, install, inspect or certify anything. No page recommends a specific brand or product, and where a decision depends on a specific product, the guidance is to ask the supplier for its test report and read it.
Is Playbright an official source?
No. The official sources are the CPSC Public Playground Safety Handbook, the ASTM standards, the ADA Standards for Accessible Design and your state or local requirements. Playbright summarizes and explains them and points you at the original document every time.
Which country does the guidance apply to?
Primarily the United States. Pages work from the CPSC handbook, ASTM standards and the 2010 ADA Standards. Where a reader is likely to be outside the US, the equivalent standards are named: EN 1176 and EN 1177 in Europe, CSA Z614 in Canada, AS 4685 in Australia.