Annual Inflatable Safety Inpection PIPA Tagged
All inflatables must be annually inspected by a competent person, deemed competent by the HSE. The HSE recognises ADIPS and PIPA as competent and as such are the only two schemes in the UK that bouncy castle hire companies can use if they want to ensure that the HSE are satisfied that the inflatables meet the BSEN standard.
You can use other schemes or individuals you feel are competent, but we prefer to have the reassurance that our inflatables are inspected to a stanard that the HSE have formerly accepted as competent. - We use a PIPA inspector and have done so ever since we began our company and hirring inflatables.
PIPA has become the market leader for inspections and is the one most commonly requested by Schools and PTA's when requesting a quote for their fetes, making it very easy for us to work with Schools and provide them with all of the tracking numbers for the equipment so that they can check the authenticity independantly on the PIPA website. In fact, we don't hide this information at all, on every single one of our inflatables that fall under the PIPA scheme, we have the PIPA number displayed and the certificate viewable on the inspections tab for that product - We won't keep you waiting for it or second guessing if we actually have it or not, it's right there before you even make a booking!
School fete bookings and events are increasingly aware of this requirement and more than ever before are asking to see these credentials. For us, we've been doing this since day one, making it a comfortable decision for schools and event organisers to book with us.
"Inspection Day" is somewhat of a dreaded day for bouncy castle companies - The more equipment you have, the harder that day is. Some companies prefer to have each inflatable inspected as and when it comes to that time and will take each one to their inspector at the time, but for companies with a lot of stock that just isn't possible - We would constantly be taking a different one each week. We go for the big bang "Inspection Day", even if that inflatable is still under it's current term we get them all in synch and get the lot done over a very long day.
The photos can often look like a lot of fun, but in truth in consists of getting all of the equipment to one venue (which in itself is a logistical issue requiring several trips in vans), un-packing each of them and inflating them for the inspector to go through their checks. The checks are based around safety; Some things you wouldn't even think of checking... Anchor pull strength, flame retardent and over-all integrity of the inflatable.
After the inspection each one needs to be packed away and taken back to storage. We're lucky that as we have so many, the inspector agrees to come to our venue instead; We hire a hall and have lots of them inflated at once, allowing the inspector to go round each of them and never really catching a break, as a team we follow them round and pack them away while putting up another one ahead of them, so it's a constant flow. By the end of the day we're all worn out, but it's a commitment to our customers that we will always provide the safest equipment and well worth the very long day's work.
As our equipment grows, the process takes longer and longer, starting at 05:00 and not finishing until late in the evening. However, the up side to this is that at any given point, all of our equipment itself is deemed safe and we can back-up this claim with an independant check on the PIPA website for any of the inflatables that fall under the scheme.
For us, today was that inspection day! We hired a hall in Belxey and got to work hours before the inspector arrived, making sure we had transported all of the equipment into the hall before he arrived and started setting up the first batch. We've been using the same inspector for the last 8 years and are grateful that he doesn't mind the long day, rather than splitting it up over a two day period; It saves us on hall hire and two days of labour with staff (we use a team of 4 to ensure that we don't slow the inspector down). It's non-stop setting up and packing away, but the end result shows and demonstrates that for us "safety first" isn't just a tag-line, but a tangible company value that we truly believe in.
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