Bouncy Castle PIPA Testing
This title is a little miss-leading. In fact, it's not helping clear things up at all, but the truth is most people still call it s "PIPA test", which is very inaccurate.
Once a year, inflatables have to be inspected by a person deemed competent by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). They only recognise two bodies as competent; The RPII and ADIPS.
ADIPS covers more than inflatables, it includes a multitude of fairground rides. The RPII inflatable inspectors specialise in inflatables.
PIPA is essentially a website with an online database. PIPA allow RPII inflatable inspectors to upload the details of the inspection to the site and the inspector adds a blue disc to the inflatable with the number. This allows customers or anyone else to look up the details of the inflatable at an online and independant body, confirming that the inflatable meets the criteria BSEN14960:2013 (which is the standard to which inflatyable in the UK must meet).
PIPA only allow RPII operators to do this, so we choose to use an RPII inspector, allowing us to demonstrate clearly that our inflatables comply to the standard.
This means that there is no "PIPA Test", it's actually an RPII inspection and the outcome is published on the PIPA website.
However, saying "All our inflatables have been inspected and deemed to meet the criteria of BSEN 14960:2013 by an RPII inspector and the results are available on the PIPA website" is quite a mouth-full, so it has generally been shortened to "PIPA Tested".
We're pleased to state that every single one of our inflatables (where appropriate) are "PIPA tested". Although even that is miss-leading; Not all inflatables fall under the PIPA scheme. For example, they do not cover inflatable ball pools! That's a real bone of contention in some cases as a lot of schools are provided guidance that inflatables need to be PIPA tagged and not to accept them otherwise; When some inflatables are not allowed to be PIPA tagged because they do not fall under their scheme, this can cause a lot of confusion.
We have one big "testing day" a year. We hire a hall and have everything done in one big go. However, we increase our stock and add new products all the time! Most of the time we are able to buy inflatables with a valid tag on the inflatable and it's valid for the year, but sometimes the manufacturer or body we purchased from do not participate in the PIPA scheme and we have to take one individually to be inspected. This puts it out of synch with the rest of them, but we actually then include it in the yearly "testing day" group again, regardless of whether it coul dbe left for another 9 months or not (it's easier for us to know that every single one of the inflatables is covered, rather than tracking them all individually).
Here's a few photos of our most recent addition, the jungle bouncy castle being inspected and subquently meeting the criteria (essentially "passing") and receiving it's tag!
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