Play Park & Soft-Surface Sanitising in Dawlish

The Moore & Franks approach in Dawlish

Right on the exposed coast, Dawlish hands its play areas a hard time. The play park by Dawlish Water, the soft surfaces near the seafront and the school grounds up on Barton Hill all cop salt spray straight off the beach and the Warren, plus shade and leaf fall from the wooded slopes around Holcombe. That salt holds moisture against rubber crumb and matting long after the rain stops, breeding the algae that makes a surface slippery and grubby. Our DOFF III superheated-steam process sanitises the whole lot — frames, soft-play, changing rooms, bonded surfacing — using products that are non-hazardous to children and leave no residue. Local, insured to £5m, twenty-five years on, and free to quote.

Salt does something particular to a play surface that inland grime doesn't. On the seafront and Barton Hill sites it works into the wet-pour and settles in the textured grip of frames and slides, holding damp and giving algae a permanent foothold in the surface itself. You can't sweep that out. The DOFF III steam draws the salt-laden film and the growth up out of the material at temperature, sanitising the equipment and matting together rather than just wetting the top and moving the problem around.

Because the kit down here already takes a battering, our method is deliberately gentle on it. Heat does the sanitising, so the pressure can stay low — powder-coated frames aren't stripped back, moulded slides aren't dulled, and water isn't forced into fixings that salt has already worked at. A cold pressure-washer would do the opposite. After steam the surfaces dry fast, so a play area near the seafront can reopen the same day rather than sitting cordoned off through a busy weekend.

Dawlish fills up in season, so timing matters. Most site managers want the main sanitise done in early spring, before the Easter and summer crowds arrive and while the equipment has had the winter's growth on it longest. We fit around opening hours and work a section at a time, and being a short run from the town we can get back for a lighter mid-season going-over if a busy park needs it. An optional non-hazardous top-coat helps hold the salt film off between visits.

Our Dawlish customers are typically within 25 minutes of our Exeter base. We cover the wider EX7 postcode area and the surrounding villages (Dawlish Warren, Dawlish Water (the Black Swans), Cockwood, Holcombe, Barton Hill, The Strand).