Swing Set / playground

[VetteLT193]

Funny story:

We have a new baby coming next week. My daughter is 2 and at the a good age for swinging and going down slides etc. she's good at climbing steps and all that other jazz.... so, we figure we'll get the set now, it will last through both kids, and my daughter will have something fun to do while everyone is oohing and ahhing over kid #2. I picked up a kit job from Costco with a slide, swings, monkey bars, small pic-nic table, little club house, etc.

I have no problems building stuff, this should be a piece of cake... or so I thought.

-I pulled the instructions out... 67 pages + a DVD.
-The sack of screws alone must weigh 40 pounds. I don't know how the plastic holds together under the weight.
-The instructions say 16 hours. considering instructions are usually conservative and doesn't include the ground leveling (I live on a gigantic hill) I estimate about 150 hours.

Holy crap.:bonk:

any good stories from other parents?

[boxy]

My Brother in Law bought the same kit. He's a mechanic, and his brother is a fireman/carpenter.
It took them 4 weekends to put it together.
Another buddy bought the same kit, he paid $1000 to have it put together.
If it's the kit I'm thinking of, it is a variation of one of the Rainbow playsystems kits. See if there is a Rainbow dealer in your area who might install it.
http://www.rainbowplay.com/
The playstructure we have was given to us by another family in the neighbourhood. They were installing a pool and it had to go.
They had installed it on a huge sand base. I showed up thinking I was going to have to number everything then spend hours putting it back together. I unbolted the swings from the clubhouse, dug around the support posts, lay the clubhouse across my John Deere garden trailer, drove it to my house. Came back did the same thing with the swing section. Dug 4 new holes, dropped the clubhouse into the holes, levelled it, bolted on the swings, slide and ladder, and had another beer.
4 hours start to finish ..... :D

[HOWARD O]

I looked into buying one of these at Sam's Club last year. Did some research on the 'net and realized that it was an undertaking. There are even folks in local areas that do nothing but come to your house and build it for you.

The biggest tip that I garnered through all the reading was to have at least 2 people working on it. One person basically doing the construction and the other to have the materials organized to give to you.

Let us know how it goes so I know what to expect! :yes:

[HOWARD O]

Well Boxy, that's cheating! I think you should be required, as a good father, to go disassemble that thing and put it back together again from scratch!!! That's just not fair to the rest of us! :mad:

[VetteLT193]

Yes, it's a rainbow subsidary. The rainbow kit of the same size would have been about 7 grand. This one seems to be the same quality with a horrible assembly process :nilly: I'm fine with that... I don't have the $$$ to pay someone else or buy a more assembled rainbow kit so my labor will have to do.

Howard: There is literally no way one person could do the job. It is a 2 people (or more) at all times job. The holes are pre-drilled on one side, but not on the other. So, you put your board in place then you use the pre-drilled hole as a guide to drill into the wood behind it. All the major pieces are lag bolted. I have an air ratchet I haven't used yet so that will come in handy. If you don't have an impact gun, air ratchet, or other you will have some super large muscles in your arms by the end of the build.

[HOWARD O]

Oh yeah, that was another big tip I forgot! Air tools and/or cordless with lots of charged batteries are a MUST!

hehe, have fun! FWIW, I will have to build it myself too! :yes:

[VetteLT193]

Oh yeah, that was another big tip I forgot! Air tools and/or cordless with lots of charged batteries are a MUST!
hehe, have fun! FWIW, I will have to build it myself too! :yes:

I usually measure my projects in packs... like, a "6-pack project"

This one I'm measuring by the keg... this way I know I'll have fun. :wink:

[smbarcelow]

I built this one from scratch with a few playground parts from Home Depot. It's nothing fancy but it was easy enough to build. (Sorry for the fuzzy photo...it was taken with my son's Fisher-Price digital camera.)