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Old 09-16-2012, 05:11 PM
 
Location: Kallison Ranch, San Antonio,TX.
1,671 posts, read 3,821,836 times
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We have a 14 month old Grandson and we're looking into a Playset for him. Our 22 year old had a nice Steel Framed one that lasted very well .

Can you please give me advice on purchasing one for our Grandson? I would want one with a couple of swings, a slide, and if cedar a tower. How much money am I looking at. I want something nice but affordable. I've seen kits..are they worth me putting together or should I have someone else assemble it? I've heard Costco sells nice cedar ones and I've seen a Company called Rainbow. I don't mind buying a good quality steel one.

Any suggestions and it experiences will be appreciated.
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Old 09-16-2012, 05:21 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wellguy View Post
We have a 14 month old Grandson and we're looking into a Playset for him. Our 22 year old had a nice Steel Framed one that lasted very well .

Can you please give me advice on purchasing one for our Grandson? I would want one with a couple of swings, a slide, and if cedar a tower. How much money am I looking at. I want something nice but affordable. I've seen kits..are they worth me putting together or should I have someone else assemble it? I've heard Costco sells nice cedar ones and I've seen a Company called Rainbow. I don't mind buying a good quality steel one.

Any suggestions and it experiences will be appreciated.
Before you buy new, I'd check Craig's list or around your neighborhood. Our neighborhood is always passing around kid yard items - like playscapes. Ours is cedar, it's quite old now (we're at least the 3rd owners, it was given to us free) and it's in excellent condition.

Oh, and new will run you anywhere from $1000-3000 for something reasonably basic. You can pay a bit less for something small.
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Old 09-16-2012, 05:30 PM
 
Location: San Antonio, TX
11,495 posts, read 26,718,094 times
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Walmart and Sams have them too, on their websites. If you read the reviews, you can usually get an idea of how much trouble they are to assemble.

I know the metal ones can get pretty hot if you don't have a lot of trees.
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Old 09-16-2012, 05:31 PM
 
Location: San Antonio
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I personally think the cedar playsets of today have far more "imagination" value for the kids than the swingsets of old....they are forts, treehouses, etc and so wonderful. Kids just don't get much "make believe" time anymore it seems....always being entertained vs learning to entertain themselves.
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Old 09-16-2012, 06:22 PM
 
Location: Mid South Central TX
3,216 posts, read 8,515,117 times
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Rainbow is $$$, and I think Costco/Sam's has sold out for the season...

Definitely check out Craigslist. We had a cedar playset (from Costco) that we paid $1100 for, and sold for $350. Within 5 minutes of posting the ads the phone had started ringing.

I would watch Craigslist like a hawk. It's worth the picking up and reassembly. A steel set just seems flimsy when compared to some of the wooden ones.

(Also, once we assembled ours, we did add some more handles, and some fun stuff like a periscope. Lowe's and Home Depot sell those.)
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Old 09-16-2012, 06:27 PM
 
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Oh yeah, on assembly - if you do have to disassemble a used one, take pictures! We had to completely disassemble the one we got to get it out of its old home, and no instruction manual, but the pictures helped. We invited a bunch of neighborhood families over to have an assembly party. It worked great!
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Old 09-17-2012, 02:42 PM
 
4,145 posts, read 10,386,486 times
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I'd go cedar. They tend to hold together really well and like someone else said, the metal ones could get REALLY hot! The cedar ones are great forts and I know my kids tend to favor those over the steel types in the playgrounds.
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Old 09-17-2012, 07:47 PM
 
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Oh, and put it in the shade if at all possible. We also faced it so the plastic slide faces east (away from afternoon sun). Not sure how much it helps, but it never seems to be too hot.
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Old 09-17-2012, 07:56 PM
 
Location: Mid South Central TX
3,216 posts, read 8,515,117 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chaka View Post
Oh, and put it in the shade if at all possible. We also faced it so the plastic slide faces east (away from afternoon sun). Not sure how much it helps, but it never seems to be too hot.
Oh, yeah, even plastic can get super hot if it's sitting in the sun...
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Old 09-18-2012, 02:35 PM
 
1,366 posts, read 4,466,748 times
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We got our cedar one from Sam's almost 4 years ago and it still looks great... We have only re-stained it once... We paid $1200 online I was super lucky because for whatever reason Sam's messed up and had it listed with free shipping... They honored the free shipping but the next day the shipping was changed to apx $300 due to the weight of the boxes...

Ours has 2 swings, a swinging/hanging bar, a squiggly slide, a rock wall, a tower, a play house with "deck", a crawl tunnel from the tower to the house, an area for a sand box and a small wooden bench by the sand box...

FWIW, We did compare the Sam's sets to the Walmart sets and the Sam's seemed way sturdier...
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