Playground Shade Costs and Options
Protect Your Kids
Playground shade is an essential part of any playground being built in the state of Florida. With healthcare costs and the severity of skin damage increasing year over year, the need to protect young skin from harmful UV rays is essential.
Shade structures also serve to reduce the ambient heat under the shaded portion of the playground, and this can vary by as much as 20 degrees, which reduces the likelihood and severity of heat exhaustion.
Additionally, shade canopies reduce the surface temperature of the playground components by as much as 40 to 50 degrees. Surface temperatures of plastic slides can range from 130 to 160 degrees depending on time of year and direct sun exposure as well as the pigmentation of the plastics that are utilized.
Protect Your Investment
Fortunately, improvements in the paint applications for newer playgrounds reduce the likelihood of burns or discomfort with higher quality paints no longer exceeding the temperatures of the commensurate plastic components.
UV degradation also breaks down the structural aspects of the materials on the playground and accelerates its deterioration much faster through direct sun exposure than if under a shade canopy. So, no longer is it intended just to protect the kids while playing on the playground but also seeks to extend the life and overall appeal of the equipment too.
Cheapest Playground Shade Option, Integrated or Modular Shade
There are several ways to add shade to a playground and the most affordable way is to integrate it directly into your composite play structure. This is typically handled by your certified playground expert (CPSI) and the shade manufacturer. This involves extending the support posts above the play platforms and attaching a canopy over the top of the equipment.
Modular Shade offers good shade protection and is the most cost effective way with shade costs being around $2,500 and installation costs ranging from $500 to $2,500 depending on the installation team. This does not cover 100% of the play structure, however, but with the addition of multiple canopies that are overlapping each other, you can reach close to 50% of the footprint of the play structure.
Best Playground Shade Option- 4-Post Hip Shade
A more costly, yet more effective design and one of the most popular options is to add a steel frame hip shade either as a single shade with a footprint less than 50 foot per span, or multiple canopies to expand and cover the full length of the play area. This can offer 100% percent shade coverage, including the minimal footprint that the play structure covers and presumes that the supporting columns are outside the minimal use zone that is required for safety guidelines.
Depending on the ground clearance that is needed and the overall dimensions or square footage of the canopy, these prices will range from $5,000 to $20,000 for the materials alone. The cost to install them is 100% plus of the materials plus any commensurate permitting, engineering, and site work that is required.
Typical total costs will be around 120% of the cost of materials. So, you should expect a typical hip shade over your play structure to range from $15,000 upwards of $50,000 depending on how big it is.
Are Shade Sails Cheaper Than Steel Frame Shade Options?
Shade sails offer the broadest appeal to playground specifiers, and they can offer a wide appeal for kids and onlookers with their numerous color, configurations, designs, and ability to accentuate and provide volume as well as functional shade to the overall play environment.
Whereas structured steel frames carry the loads for a typical hip shade, all of these structural components for shade sails are carried by the support columns and the footers that are necessary to suspend the shade fabric in the air. Typical post columns for a hip shade or steel frame shade range from 6 inches to 8 inches in diameter, whereas a shade sail, depending on the complexity, size, and ground clearance, will range anywhere from 8 inches in diameter to 16 inches in diameter for the steel support columns.
Shade Sail Concrete Footers
Because of the significant amount of leverage that’s placed on the supporting post columns with wind loads and high wind expectations, shade sail footers are a concrete block system of rebar and concrete that may exceed 4’x4′ in volume to a spread footer 8’x3′ deep depending on the size and ground clearance that’s needed and act as the anchoring mechanism to support your shade sail columns.
This means that the corresponding costs not only for the steel and fabric material for the shade sail are significantly higher, but also the installation costs are considerably higher for shade sails.
So shade sails typically have an entry level price in excess of $10,000 and equipment costs can far exceed $30,000. Installation costs will typically be 120% to 160% depending on the area it is installed in, soil conditions, and wind rating requirements.
Does my playground shade require a building permit?
All of the shades that are installed permanently by our organization meet the minimum requirements for the State of Florida at this point, which is typically 105 miles per hour with shade fabric installed, and minimally 140 miles an hour for just the frame, however, that can also be engineered to exceed 160 miles an hour, or as required.
Our experience has been that if your shade canopy is greater than 10’x10′, it most likely will need to be permitted.
Additional Costs for Playground Shade
Additional costs are dependent upon:
- Site access
- Disposal of spoils
- Demolition
- Additional site work or repair work to existing or damaged playground surfacing as a result of the installation.
Cost Effective Shade Coverage for Onlookers
Other popular options for shading on playgrounds include over the seating or gathering areas. Cantilever umbrellas with a single post column minimize the number of posts that may be in the play area where kids are running around.
This makes them an ideal option for periphery shade or on and around childcare centers where shade protection is mandatory
Post Pads Protection from Collisions:
Shade posts represent a potential hazard with a high likelihood that kids will run into the posts within a high use area.
We recommend adding a standard shade post pad option to avoid these collisions resulting in an injury. Post pads range from $400 to $1,000 depending on their sizes.
Cantilever Design Options:
Cantilever umbrella designs are extremely popular and can start off at a minimum span of 10 feet by 10 feet and can go upwards of 20 feet by 20 feet, which gives a full 400 square feet worth of shade coverage underneath the canopy.
With the addition of these single column designs have lower overall installation costs versus counterparts which may require multiple footers. Typical costs for cantilever umbrellas range from $3,500 to $6,000 and installation costs are close to 100% of the overall cost of the materials.
Cantilever design options are extremely popular, both as multiple columns with wider spans in between the columns to help the shade footprint project out over the place surfacing. They’re ideal spots for picnic tables and benches and typically found in public parks, schools, churches, dog parks, and pool areas.
Shading over Seating Areas
With the addition of the cantilever design, the support posts are placed or can be placed out into the landscaping area. So if you have a mix of play surfacing and don’t want to impact it by placing a footer in the middle it, we can place it on the periphery and project the shade out over the play surface.
Picnic Shades for Benches and Tables
Additional smaller shade canopies can be integrated into our line of site furnishings and costs of the shade and the footprint that they take up are minimum. Typically, a 6 foot bench with integrated shade retails for around $1,400. The shade canopy offers enough coverage for 2-3 people to comfortably sit on the bench on the periphery and have their seat and bodies covered. These can also be integrated into a picnic table and are composed of the same shade fabric that we use for all of our traditional commercial shades.
Always work with a local certified playground expert that has the experience of knowing not just the manufacturer’s product, but is also certified in public playground safety standards.
Contact Us Today
If you’re considering adding playground shade to your park playground, don’t hesitate to call us for assistance.
