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All of our Bouncy Castles and Soft Play Arena are tested and PIPA tagged to ensure safety. Certificate to confirm this will be provided on delivery.
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When contacting Bounce & Party whether it’s through a telephone call or a message through our Facebook Page regarding the hire of a bouncy castle for a garden at the back (or front) of your house, one of the first questions we ask is "what is the surface type, grass?", Quite often the response will "no its slabs" or "it's concrete, tarmac or astro-turf". Unfortunately if the surface type isa hard surface in an outdoor environment we are unable to set up a bouncy castle (or other type of inflatable) and will explain this to the client and the reasons why.
It often shocks us to hear the response from the customer or client, "another company did it last year" or "I'll find someone else that will". Safety has always been our first priority at Bounce & Party for the last 5 years and rightly so as its' likely the most precious people in your life will be using that bouncy castle, yours or your families/friends children.
Bouncy castles are required by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) which is the Law to be appropriately anchored down with an equivalent weight of 163kg per anchor point. For grass surfaces this will be accomplished by using metal anchor stakes hammered into the grass surface that should be minimum size 16 mm thick and 380mm long with rounded top which resembles a "shepherds crook" (preferably galvanized ribbed steel). For hard surfaces like slabs, mono-block, concrete, tarmac or any other outdoor hard surface such as astro-turf this isn't possible but the requirement for 163kg's of weight per anchor point is still in place.
Can you not just use sand bags? Yes we could but each anchor point would require 7 x 25kg sandbags for one of our 12ft x 15ft bouncy castles, a total of 42 sand bags or 1050kg of weight (assuming 25kg per sandbag). This would be required to be delivered in a separate van and take around 30 - 90 minutes to bring the sand bags on to the setup site. 1 sandbag per anchor point is NOT suitable, adequate or safe!
Why does the bouncy castle need to be anchored down with 163kg of weight? The 163kg's of weight comes from scientific trials by those who created the EN14960 British standard. 163kg is the exact amount of resistance it takes to break the cohesion between the peg and soil and pull a peg out of ideal grass at a 45-degree angle on just 1 of the inflatables anchor points. Exceed this figure and the peg loses it's grip. 163kg is also what pull a 27mph wind has on an inflatable. This is force 5 on the Beaufort Scale which can be found on the internet at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale. Hence those figures being used for safety. It's worthwhile pointing out that bouncy castles should never be operated in wind speeds that exceed 24mph. Also, reducing the size of the peg from the standard reduces the amount of grip and as such it becomes unsafe. A tent peg, for example, is totally unsuitable. In the absence or grass, you need to replace the 163kg's of weight per anchor point with something else. Using 1 x 25 kg sandbag is almost the same as using a tent peg for a direct comparison and totally inadequate. Anything less than 163kg is non-compliant and will lead to issues regardless or any bouncy castle test status or public liability insurance.
I hope that you have found this post informative and understand that when we say "Sorry we can't set up the bouncy castle outdoors on a hard surface" you now understand the reasons why. At the end of the day it's yours, your families or friends children's lives at risk, don't risk it please!!
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