You’ve decided it’s time to give the kids a treat and buy them a climbing frame. You’ve studied the Plum, Selwood, Dunster House, Jungle Gym websites, identified the play equipment you want and found the ideal place in the garden. You’ve read our advice on preparing the space https://www.climbingframeinstaller.co.uk/2021/01/preparing-the-ground-for-a-climbing-frame/
So now all you have to do now is order your climbing frame, wait for it to arrive, and then build it. Easy…
The good manufacturers will do their best to make their equipment as easy as possible to install, and provide good instructions. Some, such as Selwood have produced assembly videos. No problem then – if you’re lucky.
A large pile of wood has arrived in your garden, along with assorted smaller parts. Time to be very organised. First find the instructions. These should list all the component parts – think flat-pack on a grand scale. The most important job before anything starts is to make sure you’ve got everything you expected, and everything you need. Carefully unpack all the parts and check them off against the instructions. Check thoroughly – some parts might look very similar, but when you’re assembling it could bad to substitute a left-hand part for a right-hand part. Do you have all the fittings, nuts, bolts and screws? Check and double check, and understand. Time spent now will be a good investment. If there’s something missing or broken you’ll have to get in touch with the supplier. They will be well used to such problems, not because they do a bad job, but because it’s very easy for something to go wrong somewhere between the manufacturer and your garden.
Let’s assume all is well at this point. Now is the time to do a rehearsal of you build. Ideally you’ll be able to look at the components and relate those to your site. Does it all make sense? Do you have the tools for the job? Depending on your design, you might need to dig holes for the uprights, bolt or screw frame members together, and nail cladding. So you must have tools for all of these things. This might include:
- Spade, fork, digging pole, soil tamper
- Socket drive with ratchet, spanners, hex keys
- Large screwdrivers of an appropriate type, preferably electric, otherwise you’ll get pretty tired
- Hammer
- Spirit level
- Tape measure
- T-square
- Safety glasses
- Wood drills
- Saw
You might not require all of those things, or you might require more. Some people will have all of these things, others will be screaming in horror. If you don’t have many of these tools it’s quite possible you’re not confident with DIY. You could treat it as an adventure and a learning exercise. But if you don’t fancy buying and then using a bunch of large tools that you might never use again, it might well be cost effective to call a professional climbing frame installer. These guys will have all the kit, and will have done the same job many times before, so they’ll do the job much more quickly – it might prove cost effective in the long run.
