A. Yes. ECE Licensing Document Regulation 46/HS6 Heavy furniture, fixtures and equipment that could fall or topple and cause serious injury or damage are secured. Therefore, the piano must be secured to the wall or floor structure with appropriate fixings.
A. Yes. The New Zealand Building Code, and therefore by default part of licensing (which says the requirement is to comply with the building code/legislation) requires Smoke Alarms. The requirement is to have smoke detection in sleeping rooms/areas and on exit ways (within 3m of the door) from sleeping areas. This can be satisfied by either a residential battery type smoke alarm, or smoke detector connected to a fire alarm system. If your smoke alarms are connected to the fire system this will be noted in your BWOF Compliance Schedule and check regularly by your IQP. If you are unsure whether your smoke alarms connect to the Fire System/BWOF System please check your Compliance Schedule or contact your local Regional Property Coordinator. BWOF – Building Warrant of Fitness IQP – Independent Qualified Person
It is up to each individual Playcentre Parent Council to decide whether your Playcentre will be hired out and which occurrences this might be for. All Playcentre owned and MOE buildings are able to be hired out, though Ministry of Education properties cannot be hired for commercial/business purposes. A building that has a private lease may have stipulations with regards to hiring/subletting which will need to be adhered to. Please refer to the website https://www.playcentre.org.nz/current-members/property/property-and-equipment/ 12.2 for Procedures and Hire Application Forms. If you have any further queries please contact [email protected].
A. If the Playcentre Building has certain specified systems then they will be required to have a Building Warrant of Fitness (BWOF). Not every Playcentre Building will require a BWOF. The requirement for a BWOF is generally triggered when work is done on the Property that requires building consent. Some buildings may not have had any work done since the requirements were brought in and therefore do not have, or need, a BWOF.
Most common specific systems in Playcentre Buildings that require a BWOF:
- Sprinkler Systems
- Emergency Warning System (this is a hard wired fire alarm system not individual smoke alarms)
- Emergency Lighting
- Automatic Backflow Preventer
- Emergency Power System (generator)
- Final Exits
- Signs for Communication Information intended to Facilitate Evacuation
A training video explaining BWOF’s in more detail is available at https://www.playcentre.org.nz/2020-property-officer-training-videos/.
A. Sand only needs to be replaced if it is so contaminated that you can’t dig out any bits, i.e. cat faeces or lumps of playdough, there has been a flood with sewage or contaminated water or if its been wet and stagnant and is really smelly.
Playcentre sandpits generally get a lot of use and get well washed and dug over by the tamariki but it can be a good idea to turn it over at a working bee.
If sand does need to be replaced then it is recommended to use ‘grade 1 mortar sand’. Sand should be a minimum of 400mm deep but 600mm allows older children to dig deeper
- Centres in rural or isolated areas that are not on a town water supply and use bores or water tanks must meet the Drinking Water Standards for New Zealand. The Standards now require routine monitoring of total coliforms; and enumeration testing for E.coli and total coliforms.
These centres must be on the Drinking Water Register for New Zealand they must have a Water Safety Plan.
Further information is available at https://www.education.govt.nz/school/property-and-transport/school-facilities/energy-water-and-waste-management/drinking-water-quality/self-supplying-schools/.
If your drinking water is contaminated or otherwise unusable please contact your Regional Property Coordinator and Regional Support Lead as soon as practical.
A: No, our Playcentres do not have approval for sleep overs. Sleeping activities at a Playcentre would be a liability risk for Playcentre Aotearoa’s Insurance, if anything were to happen, i.e. your insurance would be null and void.
A: Monthly BWOF checks are generally identified by a logbook which has various pages requiring monthly visual checks with corresponding signatures and dates.
The logbook is usually supplied by the IQP and will be checked by them prior to signing off the next years BWOF.
If you have a logbook it is important that the checks are completed each month.
If a centre doesn’t have a BWOF then they aren’t required to do these checks and sign off separate logbook records. Playcentres pre session ‘Daily Health and Safety Checklist’ requires daily checking of exit signs and exit routes and doors so this is sufficient for those centres.
The items that require monthly bwof checks are specified by the buildings compliance schedule. The IQP contractor will complete all other and more complex checks required by the compliance schedule. In most cases the centre nominates an officeholder, such as the Property Officer, to complete the simple visual checks. In some cases an audible test of the fire alarm system is required as well.
For these monthly checks the specific things to check each month are usually made up of:
– confirming fire exits are clear and an egress path is maintained right to and through the final exit (gate/s)
– checking that EXIT signs continue to be displayed above exit doors (ie, sometimes they are removed for painting walls or covered by a poster)
– checking that any signs to facilitate egress remain in place (ie, the centre may have a process for assisting members with limited mobility to safely exit in emergencies)
– in some cases an audible check of the fire alarm system is required. All fire alarm systems differ so please check your logbook for instructions on how to carry out this test for your centre. Some systems have a test mode, some do not. Some systems will automatically link to the fire service and dispatch a fire unit if the test mode in not used.
Where a centre repeatedly fails to complete the monthly checks the RPC may instruct the contractor to visit each month to complete them. Charges incurred here will be passed onto the centre.
For further information on BWOF please refer to https://www.playcentre.org.nz/2020-property-officer-training-videos/
A: The following information should help you understand Fungi and how to treat them:
- Mushrooms, toadstools and puffballs are the fruiting bodies of fungi. They are grown by the fungi to produce spores
- Usually found growing in soil, wood, mulch, lawns and decaying matter that is damp or wet
- Some mushrooms are toxic if consumed, and breathing in airborne spores can lead to respiratory issues (spores cannot be airborne if wet)
There are really only 2 broad categories for killing / removing them, and these are
- Physically remove by hand (using gloves and a mask) and disposing of carefully in a bag, then rubbish bin
- Treating with something to stop them growing
What can we use to treat them? Note – Mushrooms etc. can be killed by something acidic i.e. having a pH of 1 or 1.2 e.g. acetic acid. Vinegar will NOT work!
- Bleach solution – spray onto the mushroom itself, dilute 1 part bleach to 5 parts water. This will kill the visible mushrooms, but will not kill the spores.
- Soap and water (dishwashing liquid soap 6ml to 1 litre of water) spray on mushrooms and also make holes in ground with a rod or screwdriver and fill hole with the soapy water solution. This will kill the spores.
- After, you can add a nitrogen fertiliser, this quickens the decomposition of the matter, leaving nothing for the mushrooms to feed off (450grams / 350sqm of lawn area)