Installation tips

Easy installaion using bags

Our rubber mulch has perhaps the quickest and easiest installation of any surfacing. This is mostly due to the convenient 1.5 cubic foot bags, which are easy to control the exact amount of material and maintain an accurate thickness for landscaping areas. They're also easy to handle and position, before cutting them open and emptying them out in place, eliminating hours of raking out and redistributing super sacks or other bulk quantities. 

 

So many landscapers who have worked with bulk rubber mulch end up applying it either too thin or thick, resulting in extra labor to either scrape off the excess or add more to all deficient areas, or even worst having the added expense to purchase more material to complete the project. Using a traditional GIS application for landscaping areas, the square footage is easily defined, so the number of bags for each can be calcuiated, eliminating the issues with incorrect install depths. 

 

It's important to know how the area treated with rubber mulch is going to be used or accessed, whether landscaping or playground use, so proper planning can help to avoid potential future problems. The use of a heavy duty geotextile fabric is advisable between any sub-base material and rubber mulch to keep them segregated, to avoid integration or mixing of them. If the sub-grade soil is loose or somewhat loamy, it may be a good idea to use geotextile fabric as well, so the rubber mulch doesn't do a "disappearing act" into moist or otherwise loose soil. 

The 7 easy steps for proper installation planning involve: 1) determining the area you want to cover, measured in overall square feet; 2) planning for proper drainage and materials for your requirements (mandatory for playgrounds); 3) making sure the area can accommodate the desired depth (including drainage and sub-base); 4) installation of a suitable drainage system, if needed (including box drains or French drains with pipes, 3/4 crushed aggregate sub-base & geotextile fabric); 5) position the number of bags needed to yield the desired depth evenly throughout the area (for a 6 inch playground depth, the bags will be placed side by side, as shown in the photo above); 6) slice open the bags and even it out over the application area (using a wide landscape rake positioned upside down works well, because it avoids snagging the geotextile fabric); 7) if it's used for playground safety surfacing, a quick spray with water the day before use (not required, yet a good idea to rinse it off, just in case any inert paint coating dust may be present in the bottom of any of the bags from manufacturing & packaging, that normally settles during transport & installation).

[NOTE: items 2, 4 & 7 above are not required for landscaping applications.]

PIP is called the most dangerous playground surface

Safety planning

PIP is called the most dangerous playground surface

Proper sub-base

Wood chips attract insect & pests

Sub-base install

Wood chips attract slime mold that can harm plants

Playground upkeep

Wood chips attract insect & pests

Surfacing importance

Wood chips attract slime mold that can harm plants

Drainage problems

Installation & drainage options

Buying our rubber mulch costs no more in pallets of bags than it does in bulk super sacks, yet there's huge savings in time and money using the bags for installation, like we mentioned up above on this page, plus there's more difficult shipping logistics and potential for serious injuries if super sacks fall over due to their inherent instability. 

 

There's also a great option if you either don't have the budget or the site elevations won't provide sufficient means for any outlet for a conventional drainage system, water vaults or pits. Typically a one cubic yard pit or water vault will suffice for every 250 to 300 square feet of surface area, to allow water from rain or runoff to use the power of gravity to flow into it then absorb naturally into the surrounding soil. All of this depends on your specific soil properties and environmental conditions. 

 

The basic process is sloping the sub-grade a minimum of one degree toward each water vault pit, fill these and the entire area with 3/4 crushed aggregate rock sub-base (angular, do NOT use pea gravel, 3/4-minus, or class 2 permeable), then you can lay down your geotextile fabric, secure it to the perimeter border and lay out the bags for normal installation. We've created an easy one-page PDF cutaway engineering drawing that illustrates this process. Send us a message through our easy form on our contact page if you have questions.