Water slides: safe thrills and spills
Indoor or outdoor, open or tubular, waterslides are becoming increasingly popular. To ensure your safety this summer, parks and leisure centers are required to comply with mandatory standards, which have just been updated.
Summer vacation is just around the corner! Have you thought about all the standards required to enable you to slide down water slides in complete safety?
Safety requirements
To guarantee a certain level of protection for people and installations, the voluntary standard NF EN 1069 became mandatory under the decree of 18/12/96.
Published in a new version in March 2018, this standard made by industry professionals governs the proper installation of waterslides, their use and maintenance. It describes a large number of constraints to be met by waterslides.
Slides can be used by one or more people, with or without elements that can be used as boats (buoys, canoes, mats). Depending on their layout, they must include a waiting area when they are at least 2 meters high, as well as a reception module (in a pool or aquafrein). What’s more, the staircase leading up to it must allow only one person to pass at a time.
Among other things, these standards classify slides by type (from 1 to 7) and level of difficulty, as well as by the number of people who can slide simultaneously, maximum gradient and maximum speed. Important information for defining the target audience, the minimum water depth and the surface area of the landing area.
In order to use this type of equipment, manufacturers and professionals in the sector are required to comply strictly with technical rules governing design, safety and testing, as well as instructions for use, operation and maintenance (EN 1069-1; EN 1069-2).
NF EN 1069: risk-free fun
Accidents happen when one or more safety rules are broken:
- body position during descent ;
- failure to respect the waiting time between each descent ;
- poor reception on arrival ;
- poor evacuation of the finish area.
What’s more, some poorly designed slides can cause accidents of varying degrees of seriousness: people being ejected; the slide breaking; the access staircase breaking.
To minimize these risks, professionals felt the need to draw up a set of specifications and a compendium of best practices, in the form of a standard that is now mandatory. This text, now revised, is the result of discussions held within the AFNOR/S52L “Public swimming pools and waterslides” standardization committee.
NF EN 1069: comply to be attractive
With the proliferation of sensational slides (higher speeds and steeper slopes), industry professionals are committed to providing a safe environment, especially during the summer months. For Patrick Duny, chairman of the AFNOR commission and European expert for the French Ministry of Sport, market professionals “ are aware of the risks and respect the standards imposed “.
The main targets of these standards are campsites, water parks and other municipal pools where you can spend the summer. By complying with standardization standards, water parks and municipal pools can offer you a setting that meets all safety requirements. A must-have device to keep you gliding in total peace of mind, all summer long.
> Buy the NF EN 1069-1 standard: Water slides – Part 1: safety requirements and test methods.
> Buy the NF EN 1069-2 standard: Water slides – Part 2: instructions
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