A fun piece of equipment that children everywhere love to use during the warmer months, a trampoline is a staple of many family back gardens. Unfortunately, as fun as they are when the sun is shining, trampolining remains a seasonal hobby that is harder to enjoy when frost and snow coats the ground.
During the winter season, make sure your garden trampoline is properly stored away to ensure it undergoes no weather induced damage by following our helpful guide on how to store a trampoline in the winter.
Why store a trampoline in the winter
Over the winter, there are two options for trampoline owners to limit damages, the first of which is trampoline storage and the second is to winterise the trampoline. While a trampoline can be winterised and kept outside during the colder months, in order to protect the quality and reduce the risk of lasting damage, you’ll also have to perform weekly maintenance tasks.
For winterising a trampoline, first invest in a trampoline cover to protect the springs, jump pad and safety pads from the elements. This tarpaulin cover will have to be regularly checked at least once a week to ensure no water has leaked through to the trampoline bed which, if left, could cause mildew. Outside of these weekly checks, in the event of snow, you should make an effort to brush the snow off to prevent weight induced ripping and tearing of the jump pad and stop the springs from stretching.
Unfortunately, even if you’re content to perform these weekly maintenance tasks, there’s still no guarantee that your trampoline won’t suffer damage from being left out in the cold and icy conditions of winter. Not only does this leave you in the expensive position of possibly having to replace a damaged trampoline but, even worse, it could risk the safety of your children who will come to play on the trampoline in warmer weather.
Storage is a safer alternative all round and, given the potential costs of parts replacement on a trampoline, or even buying an entirely new one, it also represents the cheaper option.
How to store a trampoline
When storing your trampoline for the winter, or even just when it’s going out of use for a longer period of time, your best course of action is to fully disassemble the trampoline. This is a fairly quick, easy process that will make moving the trampoline to its place of storage easier, and will limit the amount of space needed.
Please note – If your trampoline does not have poles and safety netting, you can start the disassembly process from step 3.
- Step 1: The first step of completely collapsing your trampoline is to detach the safety netting that surrounds it. Of course, not all garden trampolines will have this safety feature but if yours does, removing it will make the next steps significantly easier. Depending on the fasteners used for your trampoline net, you may need to use a socket wrench to remove the bolts. Be sure to save all of the bolts in a small bag so that when you come to reassemble your trampoline all the required parts are together.
- Step 2: Once the netting has been unbolted, your next step is to collapse the poles by laying them flat on the trampoline bed. Once lowered, you’ll need to gently remove the netting from each pole, careful not to rip or tear the fabric as you go. The netting can then be folded away but, if it’s wet or dirty, give it a quick wipe down with a towel first. With the netting safely folded away, the poles can then be removed from the trampoline bed for the next step.
- Step 3: The next part of your trampoline to be collapsed is the safety pad that covers the entire circumference of the trampoline. This cover has the dual purpose of shielding the springs from getting wet and rusting and protecting users from hitting them while playing, so it’s important to ensure this piece of equipment is not lost or damaged. Carefully dry the safety pad to ensure no mould can grow while your trampoline is in storage before folding it up.
- Step 4: With the safety pad safely folded away, unhooking the springs is the next task on the list. Some trampolines come with a small triangular tool which will allow you to unhook the springs safely without risk of catching your fingers but, if you’ve lost this or never had one, you can usually unhook one spring by hand before using that to release the others safely. Count up all of your unhooked springs to make sure you have them all before placing them in a box or bag together for safekeeping.
- Step 5: Next up is folding up the trampoline jump pad itself ready for storage. As with the netting and safety pad, the bed of the trampoline should be completely dry before folding to discourage mildew while it’s being stored.
- Step 6: Lastly, you’ll want to disassemble the trampoline frame. How you do this will depend on the structure of the trampoline itself as you’ll either be able to pull the metal frame apart with your hands or with the help of a screwdriver. As with the safety net poles, ensure you keep any screws safely in a pouch to guarantee they aren’t lost during storage.
Where to store a trampoline over the winter
In order to guarantee the safety of your trampoline during storage, the space you use should be completely secure to protect against theft and indoors to shield from poor weather conditions. For the most part, the safest option is to hire a small unit in a storage facility in which to store your trampoline over the winter.
While this may seem like an expensive option at first glance, the risk of having a trampoline stolen or damaged through storage in a poorly protected garage or shed makes secure storage the more cost effective option. Additionally, with a fully collapsed trampoline, and depending on the size of the disassembled frame, a trampoline needs very little space so a storage unit may be cheaper than you think.
To work out exactly how much space you’ll need for trampoline storage, simply give our friendly Storage World team a call who will happily identify the correct storage unit for you and provide costing information for however long you wish to store your trampoline.
