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Building a childrens swing / playhouse - foundation
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So my wife bought a kit

Setting aside the fact there are something like 1500 pieces in it including fixings (which is insane)

It states that to secure it, at each corner of the house i need to dig a hole 50cm deep, 30 cm in diameter, fill with concrete and use their fixings to secure it

I live on rock, solid limestone. Excavating a hole of that diameter is borderline impossible without a jack hammer

My kids are 2 and 4. I guess they will be bored of it by 7-8

So any suggestions on how i might secure it without digging 6 huge holes?
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Re: Building a childrens swing / playhouse - foundation [Andrewmc] [ In reply to ]
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Hammer drill holes into the limestone and epoxy anchor bolts in.
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Re: Building a childrens swing / playhouse - foundation [Andrewmc] [ In reply to ]
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I'm taking my kids swing/playset down today. They've had it for 10 years and have outgrown it. Now they just want swings so the part with the slide, etc. are all going and I'm just building a swingbeam and supports.

Having said all that, my playset was never anchored into the ground in any way. It was just sitting on the ground, actually on an area of crushed stone. In 10 years of New England weather, it never moved unless I wanted it to. The new one wont' be anchored either.

I think you'll do fine without digging any holes.
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Re: Building a childrens swing / playhouse - foundation [Andrewmc] [ In reply to ]
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i relocated a playset that i bough used off of someone else. the "securing" in my view only became important when my children became big/heavy enough (around age 7) to have significant force on the playset when swinging, and that would force the front or back legs of the playset off the ground by a couple of inches. what i did, in bootleg fashion, is get a bag of quickcrete, put a hole in the bag, then sink the playset leg in the bag and fill with water. instant concrete footing. the downsides to this were several: 1) the concrete is not part of the ground -- is simply on top of the ground so doesn't eventually get teh full benefit of being integrated with the dirt and 2) it was an eyesore. i have plenty of dirt that's easy to dig, so i just sank the bag another 3-4 inches and covered w/ dirt/pine straw and can't tell the difference. but this is a quasi-wooded area and not in a pristine lawn.
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Re: Building a childrens swing / playhouse - foundation [Andrewmc] [ In reply to ]
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Assuming you're talking inches, not centimeters... those are really beefy piers for a swing set, especially because there are 6 of them!

If you truly are on pretty solid limestone, you can dig out down to the limestone and use a hammer drill to drill a series of holes into the limestone where you can install concert wedge anchors. Put big fat oversized washers on the studs that are now sticking out of the limestone and kind of tuck a rebar mat underneath those washers. For this to work, you've gotta be reasonably sure that you are in fact anchoring into a solid chunk of rock though. I did this on basketball goal, which should have way higher tipping loads than your swing set ever will, and it worked great. You can get a cheap hammer drill for like $50 probably, and wedge anchors are a few bucks a piece. Good luck!
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Re: Building a childrens swing / playhouse - foundation [Andrewmc] [ In reply to ]
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If you are talking something like this http://www.bluegrassnursery.com/...bhouse-pkg-ii-basic/. Don't worry about securing it will be fine for many years, at least mine hasn't had issue and my son and his friends played on it until he was 9 or 10, when it was 6 years old.

Have fun with the setup, I found you need at least 2 dozen beer 3 friends, and 2 days. Getting a bit that allows you to use a socket with your drill was a life saver, and has come in handy several times since.

Ben
Last edited by: abies: Oct 6, 17 5:46
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Re: Building a childrens swing / playhouse - foundation [Andrewmc] [ In reply to ]
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If we are talking about a playset like the one listed above ours nor anyone I know that has one is anchored. Ours was built by the company we bought it from so if it was mandatory or even suggested I think they would have anchored it. Or at least mentioned / asked us about it.

I will add before building it consider framing the area with 6x6 posts, matting and then playground woodchips or similar material. It looks a bit nicer and is easier to mow around. You can do it after the fact but it's easier to do before building. Ours isn't and it looks ok but is a PITA to cut around. Cousin has his framed and a trampoline next to it. Looks great. FYI all the people I know that have playset and trampoline, the trampoline gets the most use.

Also I thinks it's relatively cheap to get someone to build it for you unless it's a project you're looking to tackle. Most people I know that are handy and built it themselves regretted it. I toyed with doing it myself but some friends talked me out of it. There's guys that pretty much exclusively build them.

"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "
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Re: Building a childrens swing / playhouse - foundation [Andrewmc] [ In reply to ]
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We built one of these massive units for the kids. It was so big and heavy I figured it wouldn't need anchors. Then we had huge November windstorm blow down straight from the Canadian arctic. The entire unit tipped over. Now its secured with helix earth anchors. If you are right on bedrock then use concrete anchor bolts. Get the one's with eyelets so you can tie the structure down with ss wire or a strong weather resistant rope.






Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's
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Re: Building a childrens swing / playhouse - foundation [Andrewmc] [ In reply to ]
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Here's a pic of what I was referring to with framing the base



"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "
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