This is the page that lists playground equipment manufacturers, suppliers and distributors.
We would welcome your contributions to this page. Your new link or better still, site review or information on your experiences with any of the suppliers and manufacturers listed below would be most welcome. Please email your contributions to me, Chris Berkeley.
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Links on these pages periodically checked using "Dr. Watson". A "+" and number (eg. +603) after a link indicates that there may be a problem with the link and that it is being checked out. Your assistance with this would be appreciated.
Play Equipment Manufacturers and Suppliers
All American Playworld - US manufacturer of playground equipment - swing seats, accessories, and hardware. (May, 96)
American Play Systems from Lees Summit, MO, USA, produces a range of CCA treated pine play structures. (Dec, 96)
All American Playground Factory Inc, in Shertz, Texas, USA, offer a range of domestic playground equipment includung the "Challenger", "Columbia", and "Enterprise" which nonetheless look more like play items than re-usuable space vehicles. Fast site that communicates basic information. (Dec, 96)
Backyard Adventures - these Canadian manufacturers produce a domestic grade and affordable kid operated sand digger called the "Little Digger". (Jun, 96) +404
Burke - nice site that's quick to load and tells you all about the items that that they manufacture and sell in North America and varoius other countries around the world. A useful planning guide forms part of the site. (Mar, 97)
Big Toys - part of the Kompan Group (Nov, 96)
Canon Machine - incomprehensible site for playground equipment. (Dec. 96)
CES Holdings This pages exists to tell you that this UK company "...can supply playground equipment from all leading UK suppliers..." . That's all folks. Well maybe I'm being a little unfair - there is actually a picture of a playground on the page - a small one but it's there. (Dec, 96)
Childlife Inc.US manufacturers of Hunter Green Back Yard Play Systems (since 1945) (Jul, 96)
Childspace Playgrounds Ltd based in Olds, Alberta, Canada, this produces a wide range of play equipment including custom built items. (Dec, 96)
Creative Play and Patio - distributors of residential and commercial play equipment based in Tennessee, USA - nice site with good shots of their products. ( May, 96)
Creative Recreational Systems, Inc - play systems from Folsom, California, USA (Nov, 96)
Dana Playground Equipment - manufacturers of swings and swingsets, slides, trampolines and playground accessories for domestic use in USA. Good electronic catalogue.(Dec, 96)
DEBBEE Products Playground Equipment (May, 96)
Drago-Newton Parent Teacher Stores in Boca Raton and South Miami, Florida, USA, will apparently sell you playground equipment amongst other things according to their page which has a very nice graphic of a red apple floating in clounds (which is vaguely reminiscent of a seventies (?) Jeff Beck album cover - was it "Beckola"?) that takes ages to load - no details on any of the products though. (Dec, 96)
Eastern Jungle Gym - domestic play equipment and accessories from the US (Aug,96)
Europlay Ltd. - British based playground manufacturer. Incomprehensibly no images of their stuff. Maybe the poms think their isp's server is like most UK servers - as slow as a wet winter weekend in Grimsby and nobody will wait around long enough for a few images to come down. Or maybe it's "under construction". Pity really, 'cos their equipment sounds very good - but a picture's worth a thousand words innit Guv? (Nov, 96)
Euro-Swing - from continental Europe (Holland?) pages which describe the products of "the leading Export Company for children playground equipment and accesories". These include swingseats, trapezes, rings, slides, rope laddrs climbing nets, sterring wheels etc. etc.. (Jan, 97)
Flexipal - not specifically designed as play equipment but this has got potential somewhere. A brilliant product from the UK.(Nov, 96)
Fun 'N' Play, Inc. based in Newport News, Virginia, USA, these people design and manufacture equipment for commercial and domestic use that they claim "makes kids smile". (Jan, 97)
Giochipark - Italian playground equipment manufacturers (Nov, 86)
Grounds for Play, Inc - a playground equipment manufacturer with equipment installed in 49 states of the US and in Europe, China, and in Africa. Located in Arlington, Texas, USA . Good site outlining their general philosophy, safety issues etc. with some links. No photos of equipment though. Incidentally, the term "Grounds for Play" was originally used by Joe Benjamin to describe "playgrounds".(Aug, 96)
Henderson Recreation Equipment Limited - another one those everlastingly "under construction" sites but at least they put some pictures of their equipment up! Canadian based manufacturer. (Jan, 97)
Imagineered School, Park and Playground Equipment by GameTime (May, 96) +404
Jesna, Ltd. - this company in Yonkers, NY, USA supply playground equipment for children with special needs. (Dec, 96)
KidKrafters Play Equipment - timber commercial play structures. (Aug, 96)
Kompan Corporation - West Coast USA site with interesting pages on various topics. Sometimes this site can be hard to reach but be persistent - it is worth it.(May, 96)
Kompan Kreations, Inc Based in Tulsa, Oklahoma where no doubt, the corn is a high as an elephant's eye, this company distribute, guess what in that neck of the USA woods. A good site as one would expect from a company associated with Kompan. (Totally off topic but a few years ago, the UK "Guardian Weekly" newspaper published this question in its "Q&A" column, "How far from Tulsa would you be if you were 24 hours from Tulsa?" The sole published reply was, "Not far enough".) (Dec, 96)
Landscape Structures Minnesota USA manufacturer of equipment. (Jul, 96)
Learning Structures Inc - Community Built Playgrounds (Dec, 96)
Leisure Time Products - Arkansas USA based manufacturer of backyard play equipment. (Jun, 96)
Little Tikes Commercial Playgrounds - as one would expect from a Rubbermaid subsidiary a complete and pretty slick site. There is a section on playground safety but as it is a straight knock off from NRPA and others (albeit properly acknowledged) why bother? If people like Grounds for Play can come up with something original in this regard on their pages, it seems to me that a big corporation could do so too. The links for "kids" (why not "li' l tykes" or would that be too cute?) on the Links page (Barbie... Disney...) tell you where these people are coming from. One thing seems to me to be a little culturally insensitive - the word "tike" is used in Australia to describe perjoratively members of a certain Christian religious denomination. It's certainly not a word we like to use in our household. (Jan, 97)
The Magic Years - Play System - On-line catalogue for Australian based flexible and modular Playground Equipment System (Aug, 96)
Garret & Co, Inc distributors of Miracle Recreation Equipment in US mountain states (I think). May, 96
Miracle Recreation Equipment - US manufacturer of play equipment.
New England Play Systems from New York state - residential backyard playground equipment. They claim that their systems offer maximum play activity in a limited area. (Jan, 96)
"NRPA's Vendor Database" - the National Recreation & Park Association's huge list of US manufacturer's names and addresses. Still under development. A few links to sites at present. For some totally incomprehensible reason the NPRA is prepared to take money from vendors to be listed here. It is incomprehensible that a large, wealthy and highly respected organisation should stoop to "hawking their wares" like this. The revenues raised from this source must be fairly small, yet for a few dollars NRPA is prepared to effectively endorse products which may not be safe. A guide provided by a body such as NPRA should either be inclusive of all subject to their compliance with a known standard or they shouldn't bother. (Dec, '96)
OK Play -from India - there are some outdoor and indoor play products described at this site which is a good electronic catalogue. Some interesting moving gifs. (Jan, 97)
Olympic Recreation US manufacturer of playground equipment - nice fast site and you don't get images unless you want them. (Dec, 96)
The Oppenheim Toy Portfolio has mini-reviews of some domestic outdoor play equipment. If you like all plastic stuff, this might be for you.(Dec, 96)
The Playground Outlet - these people in Sunnyvale, California make redwood residential playgrounds and swingsets. Nice simple easy to navigate site. (Jan, 97)
Playground Professionals, Inc. Oregon Representatives for Little Tykes Commercial Play Systems (Aug, 96)
Playland Inc - Modular Play Systems from North Carolina, USA - good site with plenty of info on their equipment. (Aug. 96)
"Play-Safe" - signage for your ADA compliant playground from somewhere in the USA. (Dec, 96)
Playsmart Inc - Soft playground manufacturers from Missouri
Playworld Systems in New Berlin, Pennsylvania, USA, have high graphical content pages which describe their playground equipment clearly.
Premier Polysteel (May, 96)
Prime Play Systems, Inc - based in Surrey, BC , Canada, this company will ship its soft play systems anywhere in the world. Nice simple site explaining what they do. (Dec, 96)
Rainbow Play Systems - from somewhere in the USA, Barry Weaver and his crew at Dayton Sports Center ("The Home Entertainment Specialists for over 30 years") have put together a site about these domestic play systems that is so comprehensive and detailed that they should offer a prize if someone can come up with a legitimate query after reading it all. Nice looking equipment too. (Nov, 96)
Recreation Creations Inc - this is one of these pages where one is mystified as to why they want to go onto the net in such a half baked fashion. "Under Construction" is ok for spotty students at minor colleges, but for a commercial organisation???? It has been under construction for ages. A nice graphic (but it's huge) starts off the page, and then follow 5 short paragraphs which tell the reader what nice people they are and how good their equipment is. But really folks a nicely scanned photograph of one of your playgrounds would have been much more useful. (Jan, 97)
St. Croix Recreation Company, Inc - Site of a Canadian company who are "...dedicated to providing... the ultimate in recrational spaces." Good electronic catalogue. (Dec, 96)
RFM Home Improvements - these people offer domestic playgrounds that are made out of plastic milk containers! Well they recycle them first into "plastic lumber". Now that seems to me to be a great idea. The playgrounds are nicely displayed on the pages. Sadly though there's no address for them although they are based in the US, I suppose. The phone number given on the page is wrong too. (Dec, 96)
Single Source Inc - based in Washington, DC, (USA) area these people will sell you playground equipment where ever you are in the USA. Not an awful lot here about the play equipment that they sell, though. (Dec, 96)
Soft Play, LLC - Good, fast, clear, electronic catalogue which tells potential customers about the profit ehancements for their businesses if they install one of their playgrounds. Products are quite interesting too. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA (Jan, 97)
Swingsets, Inc - Indiana based manufacturer of "Wooden Gym Sets". (Jun, 96)
SPI Plastics are rotomoulders of all sorts of plastic products and are "OEM supplier" of components ro playground manufacturers. Interesting site. SPI are based in Shallow Lake, Ontario, Canada. (Dec, 96)
Swings 'n' Things - Florida, USA based supplier of playsets, forts, playhouses, and backyard play equipment.
Tall Ships Playframes - English site (with pictures of their equipment!) detailing their very unusual concept in domestic outdoor play equipment. Well worth a look. Is this a bit didactic? Has anybody got any experience of using this equipment? (Jan, 97)
The Tired Horse - thundering out of the wilds of Nova Scotia, Canada, comes a kids' toy horse made from steel belted radials (really). Now I have to say that the Australian Standard recommends that steel belted tyres shouldn't be used for children's play equipment, but maybe these ingenious people have found a way around any problems. In any event, this does look like great fun and they deserve a listing 'cos they are good at puns. Must be the loooooooong winters. (Nov, 96)
Treklite Tetras - without a doubt the most unique domestic play equipment I've yet seen. It looks fabulous. I am not sure how the safety thought police would regard it (and I am on their side to a certain extent) and how well children actually play on it. Anybody out there got any experience of this product? Please let me know. Good informative site from a manufacturer based in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Or was it South? Anyway in that region of the USA.) (Dec, 96)
Tru-Link Fence and Products are based in Skokie, Illinois, USA. Some of the "products" are domestic playgrounds which are nicely explained here. (Dec, 96)
Weather-Bos - not really a playground manufacturer but a supplier of a very useful ingredient. (Jun, 96)
Wholesale Playground, Inc (May, 96)
Woodlawn Playcenters - US manufacturer of domestic playstructures made from pressure treated pine or redwood. Good clear images. (Jun, 96) + 603
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