A climbing frame has stood in a nursery yard for eight years. It looks fine, it gets used, and nobody in the building can say when somebody last crawled underneath it and looked at the footings. That gap is where the job comes from. Across all types of institution, children in day care and childminding are hurt on playground equipment most often: 67 per cent of the reported accidents on such equipment fall into this group (DGUV). So if you want operators, property managers and councils as clients, what you sell them is not a walk across the site but evidence: inspection records that have to be kept for five years (Unfallkasse Bremen).
Key takeaways
- The field works with four inspection stages. The routine visual inspection is due as a rule once a week, the operational inspection every one to three months, the annual main inspection once a year at the start of the playing season (Unfallkasse Bremen).
- The evidence is the actual service: inspection records must be kept for five years (Unfallkasse Bremen), and that archive is what turns a site walk into a contract item.
- Impact surfacing is arithmetic, not taste: from 1.0 m fall height, impact absorbing surfacing must be provided (DGUV), with loose material 30 cm up to 2 m and 40 cm from 2 m to 3 m of fall height (DGUV).
- The inspector's qualification certificate is valid for three years (FLL); admission requires proof of at least three years of playground-equipment-related work (FLL). The certificate belongs to the person, not to the company.
- Public clients are the second market: 21.23 per cent of German landscaping industry turnover came from public contracts in 2025 (BGL), while the perceived municipal investment backlog has reached 231.2 billion euros (KfW).
Why the enquiry comes from the operator, not from the garden
The stock of sites in question is rarely in private hands. The federal state of Berlin alone maintains almost 1,900 public playgrounds with a total gross area of around 330 hectares (Berlin Senate Department). There is no nationwide official count of playgrounds, which is why every total figure in circulation should be treated with care. For sales work that is not a shortcoming but a description of the market: it is administered by council, by district and site by site, and contracts are awarded for areas that somebody is personally accountable for.
The second observation comes from the same source and describes the condition of those areas. Provision of public playground space in Berlin stands at around 60 per cent of the guide value of one square metre per inhabitant (Berlin Senate Department). The statistical office puts it more bluntly: for the most part the guide value of one square metre is not reached, and in many places not even half a square metre per inhabitant is available on average (Berlin-Brandenburg Statistical Office). Where space is scarce it is played on more intensively, and what is played on more intensively wears out faster.
The money exists in this market, it is simply committed elsewhere. The perceived municipal investment backlog now stands at 231.2 billion euros, a record figure (KfW). The fastest growth was in sports facilities, up 6.0 billion euros within a single year (KfW), and since 2018 the nominal backlog has risen by 67 per cent (KfW). Offering the inspection does not hand the treasury another invoice, it hands them a basis for decisions with which a tight investment budget can be put into a defensible order.
How broad this maintained stock is becomes clear from a special survey of municipal treasuries: in 2024, 94 per cent of municipalities had sports halls and 92 per cent had sports grounds (Difu). For sports halls, 59 per cent of municipalities described the investment backlog as serious or notable (Difu). Sports ground, kickabout pitch and playground sit in the same budget, often under the same responsibility and frequently on the same plot.
Three services that belong in the same annual plan
Four stages, one annual ring
The field recognises four kinds of inspection, and their cycle is the core of every quote. The model works instruction of a statutory accident insurer puts it like this: the routine visual inspection is as a rule to be carried out weekly, the operational inspection as a rule every one to three months, and the main inspection once a year, if possible at the start of the playing season (Unfallkasse Bremen).
| Stage | What happens | Cycle as a rule |
|---|---|---|
| Routine visual inspection | Visual check for obvious hazards from wear, vandalism and weather: broken glass, missing caps, exposed footings, soiled sand | weekly (Unfallkasse Bremen) |
| Operational inspection | Function, wear and stability check with tools: bearings, chains, rope connections, bolted joints, stability, surfacing layer depth | every one to three months (Unfallkasse Bremen) |
| Main inspection | Full assessment of the site including footings, corrosion, impact areas and long-term structural safety, with a written report per item of equipment | once a year at the start of the season (Unfallkasse Bremen) |
| Post-installation inspection | Acceptance of the newly built or rebuilt site before release, checked against the installation instructions, impact area and ground build-up | once per construction project |
The manufacturers' association names the same staggering with a slightly different middle interval: routine visual inspection weekly, operational inspection quarterly, main inspection annually (BSFH). That difference is not a contradiction but the room for negotiation. A heavily used site outside a primary school is scheduled more tightly than the sandpit of a housing block with four flats. What belongs on the service page is therefore not a fixed number presented as a duty, but the range together with the four variables it derives from: intensity of use, age of the site, exposure to vandalism and the materials installed.
Who inspects, and what you must not claim about it
Anyone seeking the qualification certificate must prove at least three years of playground-equipment-related work (FLL) - a threshold that a landscaping company with grounds maintenance in its portfolio has usually cleared long ago. The theory examination is assembled from the full set of current questions and comprises 85 examination questions (FLL).
The certificate is time limited, and that limit is an appointment in your own calendar. It has a period of validity of three years, after which a refresher course must be completed to extend it (FLL). Since 1 July 2026, recertification additionally includes a written examination of twelve questions (FLL). And letting the refresher slide costs twice: if the issue date of the last qualification certificate is more than five years ago and no refresher course was completed within three years, the full examination has to be taken again (FLL). Those three deadlines are better kept in a calendar than in a memory.
What is better left off the page
Impact surfacing is arithmetic
The second part of the inspection concerns the ground, and here it becomes a calculation. Playground equipment may only have a maximum free fall height of 3 m (DGUV). The permitted ground is tiered: up to 0.6 m fall height all surfaces are permitted, including those made of stone, concrete and bitumen; up to 1.0 m fall height topsoil (natural ground) is permitted; from 1.0 m fall height, surfacing materials with impact absorbing properties must be provided (DGUV). On equipment with forced movement such as swings and slides, hard surfaces are not permitted even below those thresholds (DGUV). That is why measuring the fall height comes at the start of every assessment and not at its end. Regardless of the material, one more rule applies: up to 1.50 m of free fall height, an impact area with an extent of at least 1.50 m is required (DGUV).
- Sand, washed, with a grain size of 0.2 mm to 2 mm (DGUV); builders' sand from a merchant usually does not meet that grading.
- Gravel in the permitted grading, provided it is loosened regularly and kept free of fine material.
- Wood chips and bark mulch, whose effective layer depth drops noticeably over a season through decomposition and compaction.
- Grass: up to 1.5 m fall height grass may be used if it is permanently present and climatic factors such as frost and heat do not reduce its impact absorbing properties (DGUV).
- Impact tiles and poured surfaces, whose test value comes from the manufacturer and whose bonding, joints and edge details form part of the inspection scope.
Layer depth is the point at which the inspection turns into follow-up work. The minimum layer depths to be installed for loose surfacing materials are 30 cm up to 2 m of fall height, and 40 cm from 2 m to 3 m (DGUV). That already contains a margin: the so-called displacement allowance of the surfacing of at least 10 cm is included in it (DGUV) - precisely the quantity that children carry out of the impact area over a season. The freely available extract from the standard confirms the order of magnitude with a minimum layer depth of 200 mm for sand at a fall height below 2000 mm (BSFH).
The record is the contract item
The client is not buying a site walk, they are buying a file. Inspection records are to be kept for five years at the responsible office (Unfallkasse Bremen). Those five years are the strongest selling point this service has, because they turn an appointment into an archive: whoever keeps the records is the one asked at the next incident, and whoever is asked at an incident generally also receives the follow-up contract. An anonymised sample record as a PDF on the service page answers the question about the format before it is asked in the first meeting - and it sets you apart from every page that merely carries the word documentation.
- Site, item of equipment and location with a unique number, so that the same finding can be located and compared in the following year.
- Date, time, weather plus the name and qualification certificate of the inspecting person, with a signature or digital equivalent.
- The inspection stage, so it stays visible whether a visual check, an operational inspection or a main inspection is documented.
- Finding per component with a photograph: suspension, swing seat, chain, platform, slide run-out, footing, fencing, impact area.
- Free fall height, surfacing material and measured layer depth, each with the target value beside it rather than only a description.
- Recommended action with urgency and a time frame, plus a field for completion by the operator.
Six fields sound unspectacular, but they are the difference between a note and a piece of evidence. The completion field is the most important of them: it shows that the company hands over the finding and the decision stays with the operator. That separation protects both sides and is what makes the cooperation representable for an administration in the first place. If you already offer ongoing maintenance, attach the inspection to the same rhythm.
{
"trigger": "New operator, no records available",
"propertyType": "Nursery with outdoor grounds",
"sites": 3,
"equipment": ["Climbing tower", "Double swing", "Sandpit", "Spring rocker"],
"maxFallHeight": "2.10 m",
"surfacing": "Sand",
"lastInspection": "unknown",
"recordsAvailable": false,
"requestedCycle": "Main inspection annually, operational quarterly",
"access": "Yard gate 2.30 m wide, key held by the caretaker"
}Someone who states that no records exist is in truth ordering an initial survey rather than an inspection - and that may cost noticeably more, because the numbering, the fall height measurement and the material survey have to be created first. How to build such a form without driving the prospect away is covered in the article on an enquiry form that qualifies; what should follow it is covered in the article on what happens after the enquiry.
What recurs alongside the inspection
Beside the inspection itself sit items that arise every year anyway and that hardly anybody puts out to tender. Sand in sandpits is as a rule to be cleaned at least once a year, and where use is heavy or soiling correspondingly severe it is to be replaced (Unfallkasse Bremen). Four separate items become an annual package, and an annual package can be written as a maintenance contract with a fixed term instead of a loose sequence of one-off invoices.
Councils and municipal operators
Awards follow the budget, decisions are often made in the parks department, and the result is read by the audit office. Here the form of the evidence counts for more than the price per site, and here a page that lays out the cycle and the record does its work.
Housing companies and managing agents
One playground per courtyard, spread across the town, with a single point of contact. These clients buy routine: one interval, one invoice, one filing system. The way in is a property list, not a single quote.
Nurseries, schools and voluntary providers
This is where demand is densest and specialist knowledge thinnest. Providers get in touch when parents have asked questions or an inspection visit is due, and they need the records for their own duty of supervision.
Businesses with a play area
Hotel, restaurant, campsite, furniture store: small sites, heavy use, clear operator responsibility. The individual job is modest, but it comes back every year and can be bundled with other services.
How large the need is in education is shown by the statistics of the statutory pupil accident insurance. For the 2024 reporting year it records 1,012,096 reportable school accidents (DGUV). Among break-time accidents, the schoolyard was the main location at 73 per cent (DGUV). Those figures do not belong on the website as a threat but as a sober reason why a school's outdoor area deserves a tighter cycle than the courtyard of a small housing block. Tone decides more than the number here: you describe a situation, you do not manufacture fear - which calls for language the customer understands.
What belongs on the service page
The page does not start with company history but with the reader's situation: one site, one operator, no records. Then follows the system of four stages as a table, then the sample record, then the price framework as a structure - price per site, price per item of equipment, surcharge for the initial survey, travel - and only at the end the company itself. Two building blocks are forgotten almost everywhere: the qualification of the inspecting person with the date of the certificate, and the sentence about what happens after a finding. Name both and you answer exactly the two questions an operator asks anyway. The structure follows the same order as any other service page in grounds maintenance.
Visibility is not the problem here, distinguishability is. 94 per cent of trade businesses run their own website and 88 per cent additionally use online directories (Bitkom). When everyone is visible, content decides: a page showing cycle, stages and record sounds audibly different from a page on which playground care appears as a bullet point under grounds maintenance. That difference is exactly what local findability rewards too: a page of its own with its own heading, its own form, its own text and a title that names the service.
Two further findings from the same survey explain why the page may comfortably be detailed: 89 per cent of companies report that customers increasingly expect individual offers (Bitkom), and 85 per cent see a clear wish for constant availability (Bitkom). One page answers both. Writing cycle, stages and price structure out in public delivers the individual offer in its preliminary form and is at the same time able to give information at three in the morning without anyone picking up a phone. Whether the call or the form then suits better depends on the property; there is a separate article on the question of phone or form.
The cycle sells, not the price per site
From a single appointment to an annual contract
The market for this work exists and is growing. German landscaping, gardening and sports ground construction turned over a nominal 11.11 billion euros in 2025 (BGL), the total number of businesses grew to 19,898 (BGL), and 131,746 people were employed in them (BGL). Public contracts accounted for 21.23 per cent of industry turnover (BGL) - and that fifth is awarded through forms, certificates and deadlines, not through the prettiest before-and-after pair in a photo gallery.
Price the initial survey separately
The first pass records sites, equipment, year of construction, free fall heights, surfacing material and layer depth. It costs more than any follow-up inspection, and that may be stated openly in the quote: the lower follow-up price then becomes an argument rather than a discount.
Justify the cycle site by site
At the end of the initial survey there is a proposal for each site: weekly visual check by the client's own caretaker, operational inspection by your company, main inspection once a year. Put the division of tasks in writing and you are read as a partner rather than a supplier.
Separate finding from action
The record ends with a recommendation and a time frame, not with an invoice. The quote for the repair follows as a separate document. That separation is the reason administrations accept the combination of inspection and execution at all.
Offer the annual contract
Four appointments, one price, one invoice per quarter, one shared filing system. A contract with a fixed term and renewal on both sides is plannable for the company and auditable for the operator - and it survives a change of contact person on either side.
The first pass records sites, equipment, year of construction, free fall heights, surfacing material and layer depth. It costs more than any follow-up inspection, and that may be stated openly in the quote: the lower follow-up price then becomes an argument rather than a discount.
At the end of the initial survey there is a proposal for each site: weekly visual check by the client's own caretaker, operational inspection by your company, main inspection once a year. Put the division of tasks in writing and you are read as a partner rather than a supplier.
The record ends with a recommendation and a time frame, not with an invoice. The quote for the repair follows as a separate document. That separation is the reason administrations accept the combination of inspection and execution at all.
Four appointments, one price, one invoice per quarter, one shared filing system. A contract with a fixed term and renewal on both sides is plannable for the company and auditable for the operator - and it survives a change of contact person on either side.
The handling matters too. 68 per cent of trade businesses already send quotes digitally (Bitkom); online appointment booking is far less widespread in the same report. For inspections it is precisely the booking that is the more interesting lever, because the cycle is fixed anyway: an operator who puts their own quarterly appointment in the calendar creates no telephone loop and no missed deadline. What such a booking can look like is shown in the article on the consultation appointment the customer books themselves.
Common mistakes on a playground inspection page
Most pages fail not for lack of expertise but because they treat the inspection like a maintenance task. Six patterns repeat themselves right across the trade.
- The inspection appears as a bullet point under grounds maintenance instead of as a page of its own with its own heading and its own form.
- The cycle is missing. Without stages and intervals the service stays a walk across the site and is paid for accordingly.
- The record is mentioned but not shown. An anonymised sample answers more questions than three paragraphs of prose.
- The qualification is presented as a company attribute although the certificate is tied to a person and valid for three years (FLL).
- Impact surfacing is described as a list of materials instead of a calculation from free fall height, layer depth and impact area.
- The sentence about what happens after a finding is missing - and with it the bridge from the record to the repair job.
Clear those six points and you have a page an operator can print out and put in their file. That is the real test for this service: a playground inspection page is good when it can be quoted in an administrative report. Everything else - photographs of the site, certificates and insurance and a price statement that holds up - builds on that foundation rather than replacing it.
Sources and studies
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