What Size Trampoline?

jackomdj

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Trampolines are the new chavtastic garden toys. Your family's neighbours are going to love watching them bounce above the garden fence on nice quiet sunny days. Not.

Please don't tar everyone with the same brush. In our garden the trampoline would have been much better in the bottom right hand corner things do not grow very well there, it would have been tucked away from our view from the patio doors BUT it is too close to a neighbours house. So instead we put it at the other side, we also set it in a wooden area with rubber clippings under so we do not have the grass issue.

I agree they can be a pain, but I think that is often more the thoughtlessness of the owners rather than the trampoline as such. For example, our neighbour does shift work and the girls do not play on it (also have to generally keep it quieter) if the neighbour has been on shift, ie we will make them go out an hour or so later.

DS4215

warehouse wrote: »

Then get them some cotton wool to wrap themselves in!

Except that trampolines are one of the biggest causes of injury to children with over 11,000 injuries requiring hospital treatment per year.

http://www.rospa.com/leisuresafety/adviceandinformation/leisuresafety/trampoline-safety.aspx

emerald21

They seem a good idea at the time. We had a 10 foot one for our grandchildren but after a couple of years we wanted the garden back- it took up quite a bit of space. Offered it to my son for their garden but he nor my other 2 grown up kids wanted it and this was for free lol. We paid £100 for it at the time and sold it for £40.

If it was only for the child a smaller one would be big enough eg 8ft but with others wanting to use it you may need a bigger one and as someone else said only one person should go on them at a time as its easy for one to land on the other especially children.

Plus you get birds settling on them and mucking all around the padded edge all the time so needed constant cleaning yuk. The elastic round them also wears away and needs replacing every year or so too. Hth

DC1903

warehouse wrote: »

Then get them some cotton wool to wrap themselves in!

I could not agree less with this comment, and more with the comment from DS4215. Teach them safety first!

I live on the same scheme as a young boy who was killed on one of these a couple of days ago. He broke his neck.

http://news.stv.tv/highlands-islands/217925-cain-macdonald-dies-following-trampoline-accident-in-inverness/


I know that accidents happen....but stop making out that we are wrapping our kids in cotton wool by teaching basic rules.

barbiedoll

We bought a trampoline for our DS and it was the best £100 we ever spent, he used it every day and if he wasn't jumping on it, the cat was sleeping on it!

Make sure the parents set some clear rules, no fighting or wrestling on it, make sure that kids are supervised, keep an eye on the enclosure (we had to replace ours when the zip broke) and try to keep it on grass, not only is it much more dangerous on concrete but it's a lot more noisy. Don't let them on it when it has been raining and do consider the neighbours.

Get the biggest that you can fit in the garden, 8ft is probably the minimum if adults want to use it too.

Oh, and don't let drunken party guests go on it. They will break it!