PIPA & other Bouncy Castle Testing Methods

Date: 11 Mar 2009

The truth about PIPA testing......

Many newcomers to our industry become confused and bewildered by what castle is what and who can test what. Though all of us UK bouncy castle manufacturers put safety in the forefront, some who simply import cheaper eastern imports are unable to monitor this.

Over the years bouncy castle testing has been a very controversial issue. Many regimes have been started to test bouncing castles, but fell by the wayside. There is no law to state that you have to have your castle tested by anybody, but it is good practice to do so. The HSE had a European draft known as EN BS14960 drawn up to advise manufacturers of inflatables and bouncy castles on safe methods to imply in construction of their products. This gave birth to a business known as PIPA who produce the tags and A4 paper certificates for manufacturers to buy from them. Although PIPA s early stage intentions seemed great for safety improvement, many manufacturers have lost faith in it. PIPA's marketing regime brought some untrue comments in its literature about it supportingly being law to attempt to force hirers and manufacturers into insisting on there brand. This was untrue and angered many manufacturers. Plus the extortionate cost of the tags and the certificate has proved impossible to incorporate in today's free falling market.

The truth is that there is a health and safety at work act, and should you hire inflatables you SHOULD have these tested by a competent person who is prepared to give you a certificate for 12 months stating it complies to EN BS14960.This does not have to be a PIPA certificate so do not be fooled. It is your choice if you wish to have a standard en bs14960 test or a PIPA 14960 test, either way from AJL you will receive the same high quality inflatable that goes one step further than all the rest is has passed EN71 parts 1, 2 and even 3.