The Cheap Frugal (free) way to Tether down a trampoline

A storm went through our area last night. This morning as I drove my son to an early morning class at the high school we were some of the first to survey the mess it left behind as we were driving through town at 5:45 am.

Although you expect to see downed tree's and branches and even signs and fences all over town, I was surprised at the number of trampolines that had gone airborn and smashed into homes. On our own street I saw three!

Here is the trampoline right by my driveway as I pulled out this morning. It was only 3 weeks old and belongs to the neighbor who lives 3 houses down.


Here's another...


And yet another. Luckily this guys smashed into his own house and not someone elses. That's a tiny blessing although the bent and ruined trampoline won't be a good morning view to their 7 year old.

With my comments about flying trampolines you might (or might not) be surprised to know that we are a trampoline family.

We've downed a trampoline for about 5 (?) years now. Yet, our trampoline has never taken flight and went to visit our neighbors homes. Why? Because we try to tether it down when we know bad weather is coming.

When we know a storm is a possibility or we are leaving on vacation and won't be here to watch the situation we will go out in the backyard and flip it over. This makes a surface flat to the ground with only the metal legs sticking up (we do not have the child safety net over the top of ours).

If only one of us is home (as was the case yesterday when it was only ME home alone) I knew a storm was coming but I needed a second person to flip the trampoline. (My husband and son can do it alone but I don't have the strength). In that case I just grab the garden hose and wrap it around the legs of the trampoline. I weave it a couple times inbetween the legs and leave the hose on the ground. As crazy and simple as it sounds it's worked perfect all this time (and we get some pretty intense storms!). Trampolines are so light, it doesn't take much to hold them in place. The wind tends to go 'through' the black material so it's easily tethered to the ground without any real force needed.

If you feel so inclined you could invest in long wires and loop them around the base of the metal legs and push both ends of the wire into the ground (I'd go down about 2 feet on each side) but we like to move our trampoline so the grass grows evenly around it and doesn't die out under the legs, so flipping it over or tethering it with a simple green garden hose works well and has for 5 years now.

And it's free!