Garden swing

[madmungo]

Hey there :-)

So i went to my bosses house yesterday and he had a nice swing/slide and raised playhouse combo that my 18 month old daughter just loved. I have a much smaller garden and was looking at possibly just a swing, or something similar but on a less grand scale.

She is off to the park today with my wife and i got to wondering, maybe i should price up the project and see if it is better to build or buy.

The prices on the internet just shocked me! For a similar set up that my boss had, made from treated softwood, they are generally asking anywhere from £1500 (UK pounds) to £2000. That seems to me just ludicrous! It was not very fancy and in most places was not smoothed off on the ends of the wood, nor was anything difficult from a design perspective.

Ok so treated softwood is more expensive than regular wood, but i still do not understand why it would be so pricey.

Basically i wanted to know from others that tackle home and garden projects in wood, what is the experience of the pack here? Have any of you done similar, (got any plans :-)) or decided to build, only to find out the parts cost a great deal?

You can see from my gallery that i have not done a massive amount, but this kind of project is well within my capability i should imagine. I also have the safety of my daughter in mind as well.

Any input is welcome :-D

[Lawrence Brown]

Yep, it's just as bad (or worse) here in the states. You are paying that much because they are a "specialty" product, and in the case of here in the states, I'm sure a lot of it goes to cover liability costs. From what I've seen, there's very little that you get from them that you couldn't do yourself.

The number one concern, as you say, is the child's safety, so just test and retest everything and you should be good. If you're making a swing, sit on it. If it'll safely hold you, it should be okay for the kid, etc. Of course where I came from, we just threw a rope over branch, tied a tire to the end, and called it good, so what do I know?

The one thing you may want to watch out for though is the wood. From what I've read over the years, a lot of people have become concerned that the chemicals used in treated wood are bad for kids. There are now some alternatives specifically because of this, so that may be something you want to research.

[madmungo]

Yep, it's just as bad (or worse) here in the states. You are paying that much because they are a "specialty" product, and in the case of here in the states, I'm sure a lot of it goes to cover liability costs. From what I've seen, there's very little that you get from them that you couldn't do yourself.

The number one concern, as you say, is the child's safety, so just test and retest everything and you should be good. If you're making a swing, sit on it. If it'll safely hold you, it should be okay for the kid, etc. Of course where I came from, we just threw a rope over branch, tied a tire to the end, and called it good, so what do I know?

The one thing you may want to watch out for though is the wood. From what I've read over the years, a lot of people have become concerned that the chemicals used in treated wood are bad for kids. There are now some alternatives specifically because of this, so that may be something you want to research.

Fab reply, thanks for that. I had not thought of getting round the preservatives but was thinking of just having to deal with it as a necessity. The swing seat or other areas that might be touched, could be treated differently, or protected in another way. Good idea, i shall research more. ( I have some 'salad bowl finish' but not sure i have enough :-)

Thanks for the input :-)

[Lawrence Brown]

I wouldn't think you'd need to go as far as a food-grade finish, not unless your daughter likes to eat furniture. I don't think it would survive very long outside anyway.

I'd imagine you'd be just fine with any standard outdoor finish, such as polyurethane. All of those finishes are pretty inert once they're cured. From what I understand, the whole concern over the pretreated lumber was that the pesticide/fungicides leaching out onto kids' skin. The wood used to be treated with everything from arsenic to copper sulphate and was nasty stuff, but now I think most of it is much "friendlier", though it's still not recommended for playgrounds.

I'd think anything you'd put on deck furniture would be fine, but it's definitely something to research further.

[PaulMarcel]

If you are going to put a varnish or poly on the wood, I wouldn't think you'd need to worry about fungus or rot. Yes, the wood that touches the ground needs to be treated, but surely there are treatments you can apply while avoiding "PT" lumber. Like M pointed out, the old PT woods were heavy in copper. They still are, but I keep reading feel-good literature in the PT aisle at the local borg that says it isn't that bad anymore (but the list of things not to do seems the same!!)

Anyway, here, what touches the ground should be PT or treated properly against rot, insects, fungus, etc. Everything above that can be what you like.

A great source of information is the Jamestown Distributors site. They sell a lot of marine products. Their tech info, videos, opinions, etc are very helpful. Certainly if you wanted to paint the set, a deck paint would work. Deck stain or yacht varnish would also be good solutions. I know JD isn't on your side of the pond, but a good info source to enable you to find equivalent products back home.

Example: wood touching ground, protect with a penetrating epoxy (developed in Holland) called CPES. Anywhere that could hold water causing rot or fungal growth, also CPES as a primer. Epifanes yacht varnish can tolerate a lot of UV and is durable. Paint? they have deck paints that are antibacterial.

Just some ideas. If you build it, post pics here; love to see the build process, too

[madmungo]

If you are going to put a varnish or poly on the wood, I wouldn't think you'd need to worry about fungus or rot. Yes, the wood that touches the ground needs to be treated, but surely there are treatments you can apply while avoiding "PT" lumber. Like M pointed out, the old PT woods were heavy in copper. They still are, but I keep reading feel-good literature in the PT aisle at the local borg that says it isn't that bad anymore (but the list of things not to do seems the same!!)

Anyway, here, what touches the ground should be PT or treated properly against rot, insects, fungus, etc. Everything above that can be what you like.

A great source of information is the Jamestown Distributors site. They sell a lot of marine products. Their tech info, videos, opinions, etc are very helpful. Certainly if you wanted to paint the set, a deck paint would work. Deck stain or yacht varnish would also be good solutions. I know JD isn't on your side of the pond, but a good info source to enable you to find equivalent products back home.

Example: wood touching ground, protect with a penetrating epoxy (developed in Holland) called CPES. Anywhere that could hold water causing rot or fungal growth, also CPES as a primer. Epifanes yacht varnish can tolerate a lot of UV and is durable. Paint? they have deck paints that are antibacterial.

Just some ideas. If you build it, post pics here; love to see the build process, too

Thanks Mech and Paul, some really excellent stuff there :-) I was quite focussed on the uprights being one piece, but as you say, PT underground and i could potentially have a different section above. Or just paint the PT timber where it may be touched.

I was thinking of some different ideas at the moment. I might split the project down in to different sections and build it slowly. So starting off with a raised play house, then a slide coming off it etc. followed by a swing. a play house would be prettier if i painted it so that is a good start i reckon.

i like your idea of using non PT timber, but just treating the bits that go underground. That i think is the way to go for the main structure :-)

Cant wait to start putting build pictures up. it should be very exciting to make something really pretty for her :-)

[iSawitFirst]

A couple of suggestions. Perhaps Cedar, Redwood or Iroko would be a better wood selection. They're rot and insect resistant, easy to work with and can be left natural or stained. I would not put a film finish on anything outdoors because UV light degrades the finish pretty quickly. Trying to touch up a film finish doesn't work because the wood has oxidized. The only way to have it look decent is to sand the entire piece and refinish. Also, painting pressure treated wood is risky due to the high moisture content in the wood. If you're going to paint it let go au-natural for at least a year. An option to painting it is to cover it with non-treated wood and paint that.

[Beechwood Chip]

I'd use ipe for any outdoor application, if I could afford it and get it from a reliable sustainable source. My porch deck shows no sign of weather after 7 years. If I recall correctly, when the Atlantic City boardwalk was being renovated, they did sections in different woods to decide which to use and waited several years to see which would survive the salt, surf, heavy traffic, weather, sun, etc. The ipe won hands down. No treatment needed, but I'd seal the endgrain once at the start. After that, nothing.

Ipe is very hard and dense. I've heard it sinks in water, but I've never tested that. Pre-drill and lubricate screws, and I wouldn't try to nail it. Use high quality carbide tools, and expect them to get dull more quickly than usual.

[Onboard]

The primary concern over previous pressure treated lumber was the ingredient arsenic (chromated copper arsenate - aka CCA). That’s not to say that copper is not a concern, but arsenic was the primary concern. They don’t use arsenic anymore in pressure treated wood. However, I did read awhile back that that is for all new manufacture of pressure treated wood. That stocks of the older arsenic based treated lumber could continue to be used until it was gone.

The main reason the wood play houses you looked at had pressure treated wood, is the fact that the wood is softwood. If you go to a wood that is know for outdoor use (certain hardwoods), then you can skip the pressure treated lumber. Yes, these species (Ipe, Teak, etc. etc.) are very expensive but if you do it your self you may still beat the store bought playhouses by a good margin.

For other types of wood, here’s a link to a table of rot resistant woods. Just scroll down a bit.

And here’s a link to a good article on choosing and using outdoor hard woods.

As far as using a soft wood and wanting it treated, there are preservatives that can be purchased or made yourself and applied to the wood. For less safe preservatives you can just treat the part of the post that will be under ground. You can also use a metal bracket set in concrete at ground level to attach the end of the post so there is not concern with underground rotting. This allows you to disconnect the post in the future if it begins to decompose and replace it.

Oh, and here’s a good article on the older PT wood.

As far as Chromium and Copper goes you can go to the section header “What’s bad about pressure-treated wood?” and it discusses the matter.

This article discussed copper at greater length.

Here’s an older Fine Homebuilding magazine article (pdf) on the banning of CCA and the newer variants. It’s from a 2003/2004 issue but seems to have very good information.

[Beechwood Chip]

This week only, The New Yankee Workshop Online has a video about making a porch swing.

[Karl Bauer]

CCA pressure treated lumber is a thing of the past. Manufacture of the CCA lumber ceased 8 years ago. So there should not be any available to the consumer anymore. The primary ingredient in CCA lumber was arsenic which was thought to leach into the soil. The US EPA never proved it completely but the timber industry voluntarily stopped using the method. Still if you are going to build an outdoor project for use by kids I would still avoid what is now being sold as pressure treated. There are other options like cedar or even the composite decking materials for anything that has ground contact.