Is my old wooden playset treated with arsenic, and should I seal it or remove it?

The short answer

If the playset is pressure treated pine and it was built before 2004, assume it is CCA treated. You then have two supported choices. Keep it, and coat it at least once a year with a penetrating stain, preferably tinted. Or remove it, along with the ground cover and the top few inches of soil beneath it.

Neither is required. EPA "does not require the removal of existing structures" made with CCA wood "or the surrounding soil"¹. What it, CPSC and the state health departments give is guidance, and on most points they agree. They differ on how often to recoat, and that is the point this page settles.

How to tell whether it is CCA

Go by date and material, not color. CCA often leaves wood greenish, but current copper based preservatives can too, so the Indiana Department of Health says it is difficult to tell the two apart and advises checking the age of the wood⁹.

The date that matters is the end of 2003. EPA says manufacturers stopped making CCA treated wood "for homeowner uses" in December 2003, and that before 2004 it was used in "decks and playsets"¹. Stock was expected to be mostly gone from stores by mid-2004⁴. So:

Most wooden kit sets sold now are cedar, as wood vs metal vs vinyl explains, so the question mostly concerns sets from the 1980s and 1990s and towers built from lumberyard pine. If you have not bought the set yet, buying a used playset gives the simpler advice: decline it.

How much arsenic, and who it reaches

The exposure is arsenic rubbed off the surface onto hands, and then into mouths. Connecticut's health department says arsenic "is easily taken up onto hands from simple contact with the wood surface", and that children under 6 receive the greatest exposure⁵.

CPSC staff put a number on it in 2003. A person who plays on CCA playground structures during early childhood has an estimated increased lifetime risk of bladder or lung cancer of about 2 to 100 per million⁴. The Middle Tennessee Poison Center gave the dose as about 3.5 micrograms on each day that includes a playground visit, against 2 to 46 micrograms a day that children aged 2 to 6 take in from food, water, soil and air⁸. CPSC denied the petition to ban CCA play equipment in November 2003 because EPA's cancellation, effective at the end of that year, already covered new equipment. Commissioner Moore noted that it left no guidance for structures already in use⁴.

So this is a long-term, low-level exposure, not a poisoning. It is worth reducing because every step that reduces it is cheap.

Sealing: every year, not every two

No source recommends paint, and the federal sources specify a penetrating stain, oil or water based. They disagree on the interval.

Once a year is right. The 2007 Connecticut sheet bases its two years on the wood makers' maintenance recommendations and a California rule for state-bought play equipment⁵, not on the coating trials. When the first year of trial results arrived in 2005, EPA and CPSC said at least once a year², and Connecticut's later guidance to towns says the same⁶.

The CPSC staff data show why. Minidecks of CCA wood were coated with eight consumer products and left outdoors in Maryland for two years. After one year, seven of the eight reduced dislodgeable arsenic significantly compared with bare wood. After two years, only three still did³. A two year interval spends the second year relying on a coating that, for most products, had stopped working.

Which coating, and why not paint

Tinted beats clear. The best penetrating product in the CPSC staff trial was an oil based stain with red cedar pigment: two years in, its boards carried about 11 percent of their starting arsenic, against about 100 percent on bare wood. The same product in a clear version did not differ significantly from bare wood even at one year³. One caution: the tinted stain was only on four planks of one deck, so read it as a strong hint, not a ranking.

Paint generally gave the lowest readings of all, and the staff still advise against it. By 24 months it was cracked and chipped, and recoating chipped paint means scraping or sanding, which could increase exposure to the wood and its arsenic³. EPA also found elevated arsenic, chromium and copper in paint chips from coated CCA wood³. The joint 2005 advice says the same: film formers chip or flake, and the preparation they need, such as sanding or power washing, should weigh in the choice².

That rules out the usual refinishing routine. Painting and refinishing describes sanding back to sound wood, which is right for cedar and wrong here. On CCA wood, clean gently and recoat. If a handrail or deck board is splintering badly enough to need sanding, replace it with current treated lumber or cedar instead. Repairs and replacement parts covers matching sizes, and timber rot and repair helps you decide whether a soft post is worth saving at all.

The soil under it

Arsenic leaches down as well as rubbing off. A Florida study sampled soil under nine CCA treated decks in three cities: below the decks it averaged 28 mg/kg of arsenic, against 1.5 mg/kg in control soil, and the arsenic reached 8 inches deep. Every sample below a confirmed CCA deck exceeded Florida's residential cleanup level of 0.8 mg/kg⁷. Connecticut's experiment station found 10 to 20 times normal background levels under decks⁵.

Those were decks, not playsets, but the mechanism is the same. Connecticut's 2009 letter to towns singles out the soil around ground contact posts as the worst⁶. Its homeowner advice is still restrained: there is "very little need to test soils", provided children are kept from playing underneath⁵. Young children are also the ones most likely to play under playscapes⁵, so the space under the deck needs a cover.

Keep loose fill under the set. Under public playscapes, Connecticut expects arsenic to wash through sand and stay below levels of concern, while wood chips may hold some but matter mainly if a child mouths them⁵. Fresh fill, such as engineered wood fiber or play sand, which you need anyway for falls, also puts a clean layer between hands and the old soil. Backyard surfacing compares the options and what not to use explains why CCA wood chips are on that list.

If you remove it

Removal is the end of the problem, provided the soil goes too. Connecticut's guidance to towns gives the clearest procedure for removing an old pressure treated playscape⁶:

• Ground cover. Remove the sand, pea stone or wood chips directly under the structure and within 5 feet of it.
• Bare soil. Remove the top 3 inches and replace it with clean soil.
• Posts. Dig out the soil 1 foot around each support post, at least 6 inches below grade, and backfill clean.
• Barrier. Lay landscape fabric over what remains before backfilling.

That guidance was written for towns. For a backyard, it is the step that matters if you plan to garden, put a new set in the same spot, or let children dig there.

Never burn the wood: EPA says not to burn CCA wood in a residential setting¹, and Connecticut says the same⁵. Do not chip it into mulch or reuse the boards for garden beds or a treehouse or playhouse. Connecticut sends it out with ordinary trash⁵; check your local rules first. Cut it outdoors over a drop cloth, with a dust mask, and wash your hands afterwards¹⁵. The dismantling itself is covered in moving or removing a playset.

Hand washing, and its limit

Hand washing is the cheapest control. CPSC commissioner Thomas Moore called it "a very effective means to reduce children's risk"⁴. Connecticut adds the catch: it only works once a child has finished playing, which is why it rates sealing as the better protection⁵. Wash hands with soap after play, and keep snacks off the deck. The same habit is in cleaning and sanitizing.

Where this stops applying

The coating trial used new CCA wood in one Mid-Atlantic location with no foot traffic, and its authors say recoating frequency depends on the product, climate, wood condition and use³. A heavily used set in a hot, wet climate may need more than once a year. The report is a staff draft for peer review, not a Commission position; the 2005 joint advice is the official one. The soil figures come from decks, and the risk estimate is from 2003. Public playgrounds owned by towns or schools should follow their own state health department, as Connecticut's towns do.

What to do next

Date the set first. If it is pre-2004 pine and still sound, coat it with a tinted penetrating stain this season and put the recoat in your annual maintenance list. If it is splintering or rotting, treat it as a removal and budget for the soil. For a replacement, choosing a playset and steel, wood and plastic compared cover what to buy now.