Playground Rubber Mulch Installation
One of the most common questions we get here at Jelly Bean deals with playground rubber mulch installation. Our CEO did an interview recently that discusses everything from site prep prior to delivery to the installation of our non-toxic non-tire rubber mulch, to maintaining the product to ensure a long life.
In the video you’ll learn:
- How to best order rubber mulch to meet your exact needs
- What to do once you’ve ordered rubber mulch before taking delivery
- How to reuse a playground raised bed if you have it
- What to do if you have an existing play surface like wood mulch or tire mulch
- How Jelly Bean comes off the truck, and how to easily install it
- Care instructions on getting the most life out of the product
Watch now and give us a call or fill out our quote form if you have any questions.
https://youtu.be/A9CVAnsuVNQ
Here is a transcript of the above video for your reference:
Clark: [00:00:00] Hey Clark Covington here with Nic Campesi. Nic, how are you sir?
Nic: [00:00:04] Great Clark, how about yourself?
Clark: [00:00:06] Oh I’m doing real good thank you. Today Nic I just want to talk to you a little bit about Jelly Bean rubber mulch and the installation process behind the product. But for starters for those that aren’t familiar what is Jelly Bean rubber mulch?
Nic: [00:00:21] The Jelly Bean rubber mulch is a non-tire rubber mulch. It is all made out of a pre-consumer rubber that is designed for a child to play on in it’s first use. It’s a byproduct of manufacturing a rubber tile when the tiles are stamped out and molded we’re taking the excess the ones that don’t meet spec. And that’s where we chop it up and we make a super clean playground-grade safety mulch and the product is 100 percent wire-free. It’s free of phthalates and red list chemicals carbon black and all kinds of other nasty things that you sometimes find in tire mulch.
Clark: [00:01:03] Sure. And how is the product typically ordered?
Nic: [00:01:08] So we sell the product by the ton.
Clark: [00:01:11] Okay and would people order online? Would they call you what are you usually seeing in terms of the ordering process?
Nic: [00:01:17] So most commercial projects are people are going to call in the office and we’re going to have a phone conversation to kinda understand their unique situation because you know we do have some smaller commercial playgrounds that don’t need a full 18 wheeler and you know we have some that you know have ordered multiple containers for export outside the country.
Clark: [00:01:40] Absolutely. And walk me through some common installation areas is it parks, school playgrounds, daycares? What type of places are you seeing the product installed?
Nic: [00:01:49] You know it’s all of those everything from a school district with many playgrounds across multiple campuses to a small church that may be running a Sunday school to parks and other municipal play areas to daycares we really see quite a wide variety of install areas.
Clark: [00:02:11] Yeah that makes a lot of sense and because of that I know this would vary from install to install but in general what type of site prep should a buyer do before they take delivery?
Nic: [00:02:25] So the real important thing is to look at the area and say you know hey does this area hold water? Is it normally a pond when you get a small rainstorm? And if that’s the case then you’re going to want to build the area up. You know you’re going to want to maybe haul in some dirt or some gravel but in most cases you know if you have good drainage good stable soil then typically it’s as simple as you know just level the ground and then you know you’re going to want to put down some form of like a weed barrier fabric that’s kind of the base step. Now you know a common thing we’re seeing now is we’re having people call us up who had wood mulch and it’s degraded and they wonder you know what do we do here? Do we do we take it out? And in most cases we’d say you probably want take it out just so it’s not rotting and jamming up drainage any further you know as it degrades.
Clark: [00:03:23] Sure sure. And so that would be removing the wood mulch and then replacing it with something like Jelly Bean rubber mulch?
Nic: [00:03:30] That’s correct.
Clark: [00:03:32] It makes a lot of sense and maybe in that kind of installation you might be able to reuse the barriers or a raised bed or something like that?
Nic: [00:03:41] Absolutely.
Clark: [00:03:41] OK. Nic tell me how is the product delivered?
Nic: [00:03:46] So it’s delivered in a one ton sack that’s banded to a pallet and depending on the amount that you order will be the type of vessel that is delivered. Now you know most average commercial playgrounds need about an 18 wheeler of mulch. And so it’s most economical for instead of us to take it off the 18 wheeler for you to have you know like a forklift or tractor or Bobcat where you can remove the mulch from the truck get the truck driver out of there and then you can kind of bring it right where you want to go with that piece of equipment because there’s hooks on the top of the bag and then you can just undo the bag and then it’s pretty much installed.
Clark: [00:04:28] Yeah that’s great. And that kind of leads to my next question. What should a customer do once it’s delivered? And you kind of mentioned there get it near where you’re gonna install it is that right?
Nic: [00:04:39] That’s right yeah you can you can cut the pallet off the bottom you can grab the bag by the hooks on the top walk it where it needs to go undo or cut the bag and then the material just kind of comes out. At that point you know you kind of rake it smooth and then you know it’s really n othing to it. It is kind of like almost just like moving rocks or dirt.
Clark: [00:04:59] Oh absolutely. And for, let’s say an elementary school playground, I know that’s popular place that Jelly Bean is installed. What what would an install look like in terms of getting everything up to par calibration for fall safety and to have the product work optimally. What would that look like? Just spreading it out?
Nic: [00:05:21] Yeah, so you are gonna spread it you want to make sure that you get to the proper inch depth that was ordered that you that you’ve got the right amount that you needed and typically you know I mean we we always quote a compacted depth. So once kids run around you should have the exact amount based off the square footage that you provided us. And you know the key there is you know you’re not filling holes up with with rubber that if you had holes or undulation in the playground you’re going to want to have those filled up with with rock or dirt or something else before you put your weed barrier fabric down and really you know once you spread the material out and you’ve got it nice and even the only other thing you really would do you know we do recommend people hose the material down the first time you use it. That just gets any of the residual dust from the manufacturing process when we granulite the rubber to make sure that you know all that dust goes to the bottom. And then after that there’s really no maintenance on the product.
Clark: [00:06:17] Ok, so that really gives me a good idea of getting the most out of the product. Now is there anything to do as the product sits and ages is there anything that we should do to this playground rubber mulch to make sure it lasts a long time?
Nic: [00:06:30] The only real thing that you should look at is just watch you know the high traffic areas that they’re not being eroded that you’re not going to have too much of it displaced in a fall zone. So you know if you know someone who’s in charge let’s just say once a month or so just look at it and say hey you know it’s you know the material really packs well. So it doesn’t tend to migrate. You know if you get a lot leaves that fall on top of the material it’s good just to run a leaf blower on the top of it to remove any of the leaves off the top and that’s really it there’s really no special maintenance for the product.
Clark: [00:07:07] Yeah it seems very low maintenance and that’s wonderful. And let me just follow up on that from your experience you’ve been selling this product a long time. Does it last a long time?
Nic: [00:07:18] Oh it certainly does. I mean and that’s why we warranty the performance for 20 years. So you know you really don’t have any issues with the material degrading because it’s vulcanized rubber and so you know there is no reason why you should at least 20 years of life out of this product.
Clark: [00:07:36] That’s excellent and that would be compared to what for something like wood mulch?
Nic: [00:07:40] I mean wood mulch you could have to replace it every year to other year depending on how much you start with you know weather conditions you know I mean it it’s never ending maintenance with wood mulch.
Clark: [00:07:53] Right. And this is a wonderful alternative. Let me ask you Nic is there anything else that those listening should know about installing Jelly Bean anything else you want them to know?
Nic: [00:08:04] You know not really I mean I think we covered most of it. Certainly if they ever had any questions you could reach us direct at 8 7 7 2 4 9 8 8 1 8.
Clark: [00:08:15] Awesome Nick I appreciate it so much and have a wonderful day.
Nic: [00:08:19] All right. Thanks Clark.
Clark: [00:08:20] Thank you.
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