If you don’t want to read the whole of this article, then the summary is “maybe not”. Perhaps that will make you want to read on.
There are three major stages in getting that dream play equipment into action:
- Planning
- Ground preparation
- Building
Planning
You need to take account of the age of your children and what they enjoy in order to select the right play equipment. Your choice will also be driven by your budget, your attitude to high quality and robustness, and perhaps most importantly by your garden. You can read other blogs on this site and elsewhere to get more ideas on your choices. You need not only enough space in the right location, but that space will need to be flat and level – which brings us to the ground preparation.
Ground preparation
If you’re very lucky you will have a wonderful area of beautiful horizontal soft flat lawn in good view of your kitchen window – but then for most most of us there is reality. If that ready made landing space isn’t there you will need to create it. And even that horizontal smooth soft lawn could soon turn into rock-hard baked mud after energetic children and the weather have got at it. You should probably consider installing safer flooring for high equipment.
If you do have to level the ground, you will soon be surprised by how much work is involved. There’s a lot of ground to be moved, and it’s quite heavy stuff. Your aim is for a flat horizontal space not only for the equipment itself, but for safe access all round. Quite what that means depends on precisely what equipment you have. Swings and slides, and perhaps to a lesser extent ladders and climbing walls all require enough space not only for the children using them but for others to stay out of their way while moving around.
Assembly
This is a multi-skilled job, and just as there is potentially a lot of earth to be moved in ground preparation, there’s a lot of wood in even a modestly sized piece of play equipment. And each piece of wood has to be attached to several other pieces of wood. Each joint will be held by several screws our bolts. Dunster House gives a very good summary of the tools that would be required to assemble their play equipment here: https://dunsterhouse.co.uk/what-tools-do-i-need-to-assemble-my-climbing-frame-2. Their list is as follows:
- Screwdriver and a range of bits – preferably powered
- Hammer
- Drill, and suitable drill bits
- Socket set
- Adjustable wrench
- Spirit level
- Spade
For other manufacturers there might be some differences – notably a saw may well be required in many cases to trim pieces to size, and a sharp knife could be required for others.
Although you’re working on the ground you have already prepared in the previous stage, it is likely that you will have to do some groundwork during assembly too. Part of that will be fine-tuning the preparation, but you might well have to dig holes for ground anchors and perhaps to enable some of the framework to be concreted into place.
So, is it easy to assemble a climbing frame? It can be a lot of work, and if you don’t already have the tools required, it could involve a trip to the DIY centre. It might be worth asking yourself whether it would be better to employ professionals with experience, who have already built many climbing frames just like yours. They’ll be much quicker, and be better equipped should there be any unexpected challenges along the way.
