Bouncy Castle Inspection & Testing Day 2023
Every year we have all of our bouncy castles, slides, fun-runs and inflatables inspected and every year we write about it. At some point it becomes repetative and hard to find new ways to explore the topic - But it's such an important topic that we will always have them inspected and we will always share the news ina post like this one.
The truth is, it's a very hard days work. We're pretty sure that next year it will actually end up being two very hard days work as it won't be possible to complete it all in one day.
It looks cool - The photos always look like fun! But honestly it really isn't... We don't get to play on them, it's a constant cycle of inflating the equipment, letting the inspector do their job and then packing it away after they've done.
We need a large space to do this, because although we're quite used to inflating equipment and packing it away, if we only had room for a couple of inflatables then the inspector woud get held up. Our job is to make sure we're packing away behind him as well as setting up infront of him as he works his way round and round again in a big circle - Never letting him be waiting for us to put up another one.
For the smaller inflatables this is fine, but not all of our equipment is small. In fact a large amount of it is pretty huge. When an inspector goes through a brand new inflatable for the first time it takes them a little longer to complete as there are initial checks to complete. When they've already seen an inflatable before and the initial check is done, the inspection doesn't last that long in comparison. - So if the inflatable is large, we could potantialy be holding them up by spending too much time packing it away.
Because every single inflatable that falls under the PIPA scheme needs to be inspected and we have so many of them, we can't actually get all of them to the venue in one trip (even with more than one van), so we lose a lot of time doing trips from the storage to the venue, too.
This is why we now go very prepared. We have at least two van loads full of bouncy castles and other equipment, which upon arrival we and set-up before the inspector arrives - We also go with a team of least Four members of staff (plus the inspector). With Four staff present we can cope with the demand (barely) and keep up with the seemingly never-ending all day long process of inflating and rolling away the equipment.- Although at the end of the day you have Four very hungry and tired people!
The inspector doesn't usually provide "call-outs" and has their own small venue for inspections, but makes an exception for us as we have been using the same person for the last Ten years. Otherwise "testing day" would become "testing week", so we're grateful of the relationship we have built with them over the years.
But what is it that the inspector actually does and why is it so important?
By law, every piece of equipment that is hired for commercial gain has to be inspected by a competent person. For inflatables, the HSE (health and Safety Executive) deems two groups of people competent to do this; One of which is ADIPS (who mainly inspect mechanical fair ground rides) and RPII/PIPA.
It's similar to your car at home - Once a year you need an MOT. The same is true for inflatables and we need to have them inspected by either an ADIPS or RPII/PIPA inspector.
The inspector checks that the equipment meets the standard. The standard is BSEN:14960 and is a fully laid out document of what an inflatable needs to comply with in order to meet the criteria.
The inspector performs these tests and checks and determines whether the inflatable does or doesn't meet this criteria. Much like a car without an MOT, an inflatable without this annual inspection cannot be insured.
These inspections are important, because all parts of the inspection are related to safety. For example, they will test if the material is flame retardant - Imagine if it wasn't and it was near a barbeque?! They check to make sure the step is large enough, the pressure is the correct amount, the slide has a long enough run-off so children don't go shooting off the end... There's a lot more that they check and are experts in their field. Having them inspect the inflatable provides us confidence that the equipment is safe for our customers.
So why bother with the inspection annually - It's not like it will suddenly become flammable. It's not like the model and design of the inflatable can change - The slide won't suddenly become shorter.
While the above is true, some things can change over time. Seams can become loose, pressure can fall below the minimums, wear and tear can make them dangerous, anchor points can become damaged. - Which is why it is important to comply and always have the equipment inspected every single year - Which is exactly what we do!
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