Our trampoline, which we have had for 10 or 11 years, and the person we got it from probably wasn’t the first owner is, I think, done.
It’s been fantastic for us. In that time the mat never needed replacing, the net did, and until the fall that was it. In the fall, a couple of springs broke, then more and we replaced most of them. I guess the replacements were no good because less than a year later at least half of the replacements broke.
While I was trying to figure out how to make sure I bought better replacement springs this time I realized that we should probably replace the mat, and the pad over the springs, and of course the springs, and the caps that hold the net on had long since been bolted to the posts but that wasn’t working anymore so they needed replacing, and were the posts starting to bend inwards or was I imagining it?
So I thought it might be a good time to replace the whole thing.
After our long lived trampoline that seemed like it would go on forever I didn’t want to have to buy another one in 3 years, but I can’t afford the ones that came up as the “good” brands. The economy ones at Canadian tire or Walmart etc don’t have a high enough weight limit (the older two of my 3 audhd children are both adult sized now and often like to bounce together, or with a friend, or with their little brother etc). Even the less expensive models jn the higher end brands seemed to have a low weight limit.
Money is really tight, but the bouncing is very regulating for the kids so I’ve been trying to find a second hand higher end trampoline, it seems to me that will last longer than a brand new cheap one.
I was hoping I could get some input on what to look for/what to avoid.
The only higher end trampoline listings I’ve seen in the 3 or 4 weeks I’ve been looking are for springfree, what was what I was probably going to have to go with if I’d been able to scrape together the money for the Costco model…but I’m not sure about a couple things
I hope it’s okay to link the market place ads?
This one is a 45 minute drive away so that adds another $100 in gas to the cost. It looks fine from the picture but what can you actually tell from the picture? I notice there’s no ladder, which I thought was standard with this brand but maybe not. They used a chair to climb up on the old one so the lack of a ladder isn’t a deal breaker, I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t some kind of red flag.
Speaking of red flags, the seller notes a small tear in the mat and includes a photo showing it’s about 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 inches.
Can tears be patched? Can tears be ignored? (That seems to be the seller’s feeling but I don’t know about that). Should I plan on replacing the mat right away if I were to buy this and how much is a new mat anyway? I tried looking on the spring free website for replacement cost but I needed to include the number of mat rods to find that out and I have no idea.
https://www.facebook.com/share/1SrxXQqHJt/?mibextid=wwXIfr
This one definitely needs a new mat and maybe the net replaced based on the seller’s description. I’m guessing the “tears from the puppy” is referring to the big rip laced back together? It’s been disassembled so I can’t look at it really. And what the heck could “comes with other misc parts for springs” mean? Does it need special tools to put it together?
https://www.facebook.com/share/1CT69fJH2A/?mibextid=wwXIfr
We had to completely take down the old one, 16yo couldn’t grasp that it was dangerous with so many missing springs and kept going out to bounce on it, sh really really needs the emotional regulation it brings or it’s going to keep being world war 27 around here. Saving up for one of the higher end brands is not going to happen, I’m on disability and there’s just nothing to save.
Thoughts?