New and Old Playground Equipment Models

As I mentioned in a previous post, there is a new range of playground equipment available from the manufacturer of these products. I've spoken to them today and there will be quite a period of overlap in terms of availability. All the current models will still be available for purchase at the same time as the new products. This situation will continue for a few weeks.

I've given some consideration as to how best to handle this situation. You see, the problem that I have is that the current products are very good. I could just dump all of them and replace them with the new products, but that means that I'm missing out on the opportunity to offer you the current playground equipment. The reason that I want to keep offering the current playground equipment for as long as possible is that there are some things in the range that have been dropped from the new 2005 playground equipment range.

If I add the 2005 playground equipment models in with the 2004 playground equipment then the menu that I use to list the products will end up about a mile long. The thing is long enough already !

I think I've reached a sensible compromise. What I'm going to do is to create a brand new section which will have just the 2005 playground equipment models listed in it. This will be accessible from a single entry on the main menu. When the 2004 playground equipment models finally get phased out then I will move the 2005 playground over to the main part of the site. Hopefully this will enable me to offer the old and new playground equipment models and move over to just the 2005 models when the 2004 ones finally go.

Changes to Garden Playground Equipment

Over the next two weeks I will be making some changes to Garden Playground Equipment. There are changes that have been made to most of the climbing frames, kids forts, swing sets etc. Most of the changes are very minor and are designed to take the EN71-8 European Standard into account. I'll be posting more about the playground equipment updates as and when they happen.

If you're buying playground equipment, do you know about EN71-8 ?

As you are probably only too well aware, the EU are constantly changing the laws that affect even the smallest things in our life, and that includes playground equipment. The latest regulation is EN71-8, which affect swing sets, climbing frames and all sorts of other playground equipment.

So, if you are looking to buy any garden playground equipment then make sure it complies with the European Standards EN71-1, EN71-3 and also the new EN71-8. There will be a lot of people selling playground equipment for residential use which doesn't comply with the new regulations. The regulations seem to consist mainly of measures to ensure the safety of your children. Make sure you don't get caught out buying non-compliant playground equipment for your children ! (I'm pleased to say that all the products that we are listing for 2005 DO comply with the new regulations.)

If there is one 'silly' in the regulations (and EU regulations wouldn't be complete without one) then it has to be the fact that traditional rocking horses seem to have got caught up in all this. The rules were apparently meant to cover the sort of rocking horses that are on springs in commercial or park playgrounds. The regulations apparently now state that the rocking horses can't be over 600mm high, which instantly makes the vast majority of traditional rocking horses illegal. The idea behind the 600mm rule is that it is designed to reduce the amount of broken collar bones when kids fall off. I'm not sure what the statistics for this sort of injury actually are, but I can't believe it's that high.

Like I said, a lot of common sense, safety conscious rules, which are there for the safety of your kids. It's just a shame that they has to introduce a 'stupid' element (as usual).

Playground Equipment - price changes

As part of the re-vamp of the Garden Playground Equipment site I will be completely revising the current pricing structure and delivery charges. I'll be posting more about this over the next few days. Don't worry, the net result will not make things any more expensive !

Changes to the compact Kids Fort

I've literally just got notice of some changes from the manufacturer to the range of playground equipment that they make. There are some pretty exciting changes to the range, and some excellent news for people who bought the more compact kids fort last year. One of the advantages of buying the larger childs fort was that it offered a whole range of options to expand it. Well now the more compact kids fort has been joined by a standalone fort which is the same size as the compact fort.

It was possible to connect the two different sizes of kids forts together with the existing range, but you ended up with a bridge that sloped, as the kids forts were at different heights. Now you don't have to worry about that problem.

Garden Playground Equipment - site maintenance

I'm going to be doing some maintenance work on Garden Playground Equipment over the next week or so. So if anyone sees pages changing from one minute to the next it is probably just me uploading changes to the current playground equipment, changing photos, adding new products, or just generally sprucing things up.

Climbing Frames

Garden Playground Equipment sells play equipment from a single manufacturer. While a lot of people are very happy with the range of playground equipment that we offer, I regularly get asked about other play equipment that is not in this range. It's quite frustrating when I am unable to provide someone who is desperate to buy some garden playground equipment for their kids with what they want, just because there isn't something that will fit their garden.

I am therefore in the process of setting up another site to sell play equipment from a wider range of manufacturers. This is still very much in the development stage at the moment, but I am aiming to have the site live by the 1st March 2005. The site will be selling climbing frames and a much larger and more varied range of play equipment. I will post a further message when the site is live.