Sunken trampoline?

[Scottishgirl85]

Sorry no idea where else to put this.

We are having our garden completely dug up and landscaped and need to decide between normal trampoline or sunken trampoline (kids 5 and 2, so many years of trampolining ahead of them...). Space is not an issue, so just wondering generally what the best option is and if there are things to consider with sunken ones that we may not know about? Thanks

Should also add, the allocated site is behind a huge tree, so visual impact isn't really an issue either.

I have a sunken Berg unground trampoline with an enclosure. I looked at a few different types, including freestanding, but decided that it offered the best safety features: no ladder to fall off, no risk of the kids jumping off the side, and a zip-free enclosure so it’s always done up. On the minus side, it is pricey to install unless you want to do a lot of digging. I think I paid a landscape gardener ~£400 to dig the hole, remove the soil (a LOT of that) and put up the trampoline.

I have a sunken one and it's great. 3 kids under 5, and it's easy for them to walk on and off it, no chance of falling off (it's still netted though). Impossible to blow away in high winds, doesn't bother neighbours with privacy issues etc. It's great.

ExH did mine for free, in fairness, so there was no cost to me. But I still think I'd choose for it to be done even if it were to cost.

Thanks both. Is there drainage underneath, or risk of small animals getting trapped etc?

And what size do you have?

I heard it has to be a special trampoline to be sunken? Is that right? I always thought it was just a regular trampoline in a whole!

hole 🙄😳

My son does groundworks, and drives diggers. He could dig the hole and put in an escape route for small mammals (just a length of drain pipe) for very little--he estimates that it would take him less than a day's work, so around £250 for hire of him and his diggers. He wouldn't take away the spoil for that price, but he could spread it around the rest of your garden for you if you have enough room. It would look awful for a while, but grass would soon grow up through the spread out soil.

If you wanted to be a bit smarter you could add some sort of shuttering to the edges of the hole, but it shouldn't be necessary.

You would be wise to put something in to cover the springs, to lessen the chance of things getting dropped down beneath the trampoline.

It's well worth sinking your trampoline into the ground. When one of my other boys was 11 he had to have surgery to one of his feet and about 80% of the patients in the orthopaedic ward at the local children's hospital were there with trampoline-related injuries.

Forgot to sayson said you will probably need some sort of drainage in the hole, as it will fill up with water if your soil is the wrong kind. But that isn't too tricky to doall you'd need is a few lengths of perforated pipe which you could run off out of the hole.

Sunken is so much safer. If I was ever to have one I would want sunken for sure. Not likely to have one but still.

We did this but had to hire a digger. The sides of the hole were sloped to make sure the hole didn’t collapse and animals could escape!

Sunken here...3 children under 5...much prefer it

I don't think anyone would claim that a regular trampoline is better than sunken. I have the former - and yeah it's an ugly fucker - but the hassle and expense of the sunken one put me off.
If you can do it though, go for it!

My hole has sloped sides so animals can get out easily. Clay soil so it does get a puddle but not often and it’s deep enough that it doesn’t affect usage. The only thing is that when they did ours they didn’t put any weed suppressant down so it grew a patch of nettles last summer I haven’t investigated trying to move it to put a suppressant layer down - it’s fairly well dug in!

We have the berg sunken one and I can’t recommend it enough! I must admit our main reasons behind it were that I had spent years perfecting our garden and didn’t want a trampoline ruining the aesthetic as much

I have 4 kids under 7 and having a trampoline with no ladders is great as they require no help getting onto it and need much less supervision. It’s so much safer and causes me much less worry!

The lovely landscapers that installed ours (as part of another garden job so we got the work a bit cheaper) did a great job and we haven’t had any issues as they put a drainage pipe in it. Ours came from Capital play

We have had a sunken one for years - DP borrowed a digger to do the hole and he still reminisces about it.

My girls still love it and use it daily and they’re now 13 and 14.

Trampoline under tree = bird poo on trampoline. Also - it’s not so much the netting but them falling on hard metal near springs. Please google spring free trampoline - they are brilliant. No hard bits to fall on. Only trampoline in the world endorsed by children’s safety council. I think they do underground ones - not sure but their net in normal ones is so strong that adults can throw themselves at it and bounce off - it’s all part of the fun. Had our’s for 4 years - net so strong they don’t even make covers for them - wind, snow rain - 4 years still completedly safe.

It seems like a good idea. I wouldn't put it near a tree though, because of the leaves and spiky bits going on it. After moving ours away from trees the kids now use it all the time - they hated the 'bits'!

When one of my other boys was 11 he had to have surgery to one of his feet and about 80% of the patients in the orthopaedic ward at the local children's hospital were there with trampoline-related injuries.

I'm a nurse on a paediatric orthopaedic Ward, and this is true!

Thanks so much everyone! Hmmm hadn't thought about the trees, but there is a lot of space behind so perhaps we could position it back a bit further. We have clay soil, so sounds like we would need drainage.
What size of sunken trampoline would people recommend?
Landscaper is digging up the whole garden next week, so wondering if I've left it too late as presuming would need to have the trampoline first to size the hole...

You'll need a proper sunken one, though. DD3 used to belong to a trampoline club, so we bought a big trampoline. We decided to sink it so it was safer for DD1 (SN) and as soon as we did, DD3 jumped on and her face dropped. The bounce had diminished significantly. We had to take it back out and fill in the hole.

You haven’t necessarily left it too late. If you can do your research now and decide which one you’re getting you can download the instructions and that will give you the dimensions for the hole.

Size depends on how much space you have. The minimum is 10ft if you want it to be big enough for older DC and teens. There shouldn’t be more than one person on it at once but it inevitably happens so bear that in mind too.

Hi there. We have just bought a berg trampoline, what kind of drainage did you use please.
Thank you

We intended to put in a sunken trampoline but decided to get a normal one first as a test of how much it would get used, before digging the big hole etc

After the first couple of months my DC barely went on the trampoline so we decided against the sunken one. We got a climbing frame instead.