climbing frame/slide recommendations?

[miranda2]

We have a slide which we got secondhand, but the plastic is cracking. I'd like to get a climbing frame/slide combo (ds not v.keen on swings, though ds2 due soon may be in the future), but am baffled by the choice and wide range of prices, and don't know which will interest him for a few years hence. He is now 3 3/4.
Any recommendations or 'definitely not' warnings?

TP are widely stocked, made in Britain, very sturdy and modular...and they use a sweet little boy with DS to model one of their safety swings! John Lewis sell them by mail order, so do Letterbox and many other companies.

I'd definately recomend the TP toys ones - a bit more expensive to start with, but last for years. The climbing frames have a toddler height which is still perfect for my 4 1/2 yr old, & then extra bits for the legs to make them higher - my 8 yr old nephew still happily plays on his at that height. You can get slides & varios other attachments too.

I'm sure there have been other threads on here before on this subject - so have a search! I seem to remember TP always coming out well on recommendations

We have the TP Navigator frame which we bought last year (it's on pg8 of the current elc catalogue). We bought the platform and den and also a crazy wavy slide for it. My 2 and 4 year old both think it is great. It has the option of adding a swing (which we may do if we ever have a bigger garden) and also has two height settings. The only thing I wish we had for it is the jungle run, however, as dd (2) finds it too much of a hassle to get up and down by actually climbing! DS is fine with it though. HTH

Has anyone gone for one of the posh-looking wooden ones with a fort etc? I quite fancy the look of them but wonder if they are any better or worse than the tubular metal ones.

I have 3 children but no swings, seesaws, slides, climbing frame or trampolene. Are we very unusual? We are getting a Wendy house next week. Trampolenes are too big, methinks. Are climbing frames really worth having? My oldest is 5.

bump

If your dh is "handy" then I would highly recommend the Jungle Gym stuff from B&Q - it's wooden and really sturdy and suits a wide age range. Only drawback is you have to build it yourself. Much cheaper than buying the "ready-built" wooden stuff though and also looks lovely.
Dh built one for dd last year and he's no expert - you just need to be able to measure, saw and bolt together really

Thanks! I'd seen that and wondered about it, so good to have a recommendation.

miranda, tp also do very sturdy wooden ones - the sherwood range - which a friend has and is really nice looking - solid and heavy and very safe. if you have the space for it. we are contemplating all this too - but we have a really good big wooden slide/swing/monkey bars/fort thing in our village playground (7 mins walk, population of village 50, number of children under 10 about 10, 3 of which are mine) so I keep thinking it is silly to get another one like that (but smaller) and that we should just go for a more basic metal thing with a couple of swings and a slide. but I know if we had one in our garden it would be used ALL the time, whereas we only go to the playground in the village about 1ce a week if that.
So consequently 2 years later we still haven't got anything. Duh.