Installing a carousel: foundation, concrete, tools and timing

A carousel arrives in parts, on a pallet, with the instructions in the box. From that moment the job is a groundworks job: an excavation, an anchor set in concrete, a spirit level and a few days when nobody touches anything.

What to prepare before delivery

1. The site. Check that the unit fits together with its safety zone, which means 2 m of clear ground on every side with nothing hard in it. How the zone is measured and what counts inside it is set out in the article on the playground safety zone.
2. Buried services. Before the first spade goes in, find out whether a cable or a pipe runs underneath. On municipal land and inside housing estates this is not a theoretical risk.
3. Foundation material. Concrete and aggregate for one unit. For a single foundation a bagged mix is usually easier to handle than hiring a mixer.
4. The foundation drawing. It is in the instructions, and we send it by email in advance if you want the excavation ready before the lorry arrives. An email is enough.

How the job runs

The order is the same whatever the model, and none of the steps can be swapped around:

1. Excavate to the dimensions in the instructions, below the local frost line.
2. Lay and compact a bed of aggregate at the bottom of the excavation.
3. Set the anchor or the post in the excavation and level it roughly.
4. Pour the concrete, then check the level again. Wet concrete moves a structure more than people expect.
5. Leave it. The unit stands untouched and out of service while the concrete gains strength.
6. Fit the moving parts once the concrete is hard: platform, seats, handrails.
7. Test it. The platform should turn freely, quietly and without lateral play, and every fastening should be tightened to the torque in the instructions.

How long each stage takes

So the hands-on work splits into two visits with a wait in between. Plan it with a week in hand, particularly if the unit has to be ready for a fixed date such as the start of a school year or the opening of a season. We confirm the exact assembly time for a given model on request.

Cold and wet weather

Concrete does not gain strength in frost. A few degrees above zero already stretches the curing time, and below zero the process effectively stops. If the work falls late in the year, check the forecast or move it to spring. The unit will sit through the winter in its packaging without harm, as long as it is kept under cover.

Rain is less of a problem than cold, but a flooded excavation is. Water standing at the bottom weakens the mix at exactly the point where the anchor takes its load, so the hole is pumped or bailed out before the pour rather than after it.

When it is worth booking our crew

Construction firms do this faster than we do, because the plant and the people are already on site. Kindergartens, schools and smaller municipalities usually prefer us to come, because there is nobody on the payroll who digs and pours concrete. The trade-offs between the two routes, including what happens to the warranty, are covered in the article on doing the assembly yourself or with our crew.

Assembly with our crew is charged at 2,50 zł per kilometre one way from Rogowo. You can work the amount out yourself in the delivery and assembly calculator by entering a postcode, without waiting for a quotation.

After the concrete has set

Before a unit on a public site is opened, it goes through a post-installation inspection carried out by someone with the right technical background, independent of whoever did the installing. After that the routine starts: a functional check after the first month, then every 1 to 3 months, and an annual main inspection. What each of those covers is set out in the article on playground inspections.

One habit is worth building at this stage. Photograph the excavation with a tape measure in it, the anchor before the pour and the finished foundation. It takes a minute, and if a question ever comes up about how the unit was installed, those three photographs settle it.