7' Turbo Tube Slide

This is really a great tube slide, both my boys love it, (8&10) I really like the tube slide since it makes it impossible for the boys to fall off the slide, and with a deck height of 7 feet, that was a concern. I found the slide easy to assemble and the directions were clear and had pictures. The directions state that it takes two persons to assemble the slide, and they way they have you do it, it would take at least two persons and they had better be strong and very patent. I was able to assemble the slide easily by myself, by not following the directions. The easy way is to assemble it on the ground by sections. First assemble the two halves of each section, then bolt the sections together until you have the whole tube bolted together laying on the ground. The tube is light enough that one person can roll it to reach all the bolts that need to be installed. The trick, is in the directions they tell you to align the bolt holes by forcing a screw driver through the holes to align them, great piece of advice, but of course as soon as you remove screw driver, the holes will move out of alignment before you could insert a bolt. The trick is to insert the screw driver or drift pin, (the tip of a needle nose pliers works best) and then use a vise grip pliers (a sheet metal vise grip pliers works best and doesn't leave a mark) to lock the pieces in place while you remove the drift pin and insert the bolt. That one trick makes putting the tube slide together a lot easier. Put the bolts in loose, and then tighten them once a joint has all the bolts are in place, that way, any out of alignment holes will be "forced" or enlarged in the right direction. Once the tube is together, roll it over to where it is going to go and tip it up into place. If you are working alone, you can nail a temporary block for the bottom edge to rest on, and use a brace on the tube to hold it against the tower while you climb up and screw in the screws. The slide comes with two brackets that bolt onto the last section joint, one attaches to the tower leg, the other supports the joint from below using a wooden support you have to build out of treated lumber, there is a diagram in the instructions. I made up a wooden cradle to support the last joint, so it supported the entire joint instead of just supporting two bolts on the joint. The weight limit for the slide is 350 lbs, there is a super turbo slide, that costs a lot more and has 50% thicker plastic but only has a weight limit of 375 lbs, but doesn't need the extra support brackets at the last joint. The slide is intended for use with the manufactures' wooden playsets and includes green metal brackets and screws for building the tower platform for the slide, but doesn't include the directions for building the tower. The directions apparently were included with the playset instructions. The price here at Amazon, ($425) was the best price on the web and was cheaper than what I could find in all the local stores. Update, nine years later the slide is still in great shape and my boys are now older and have mostly out grown tree forts. If the tree holds up, maybe someday another generation will rediscover it.

First and foremost, I read a ton of the reviews and most of which said this thing was very difficult and annoying to put together. I took the advice of some other reviewers and did a few things to ensure I got it built in the shortest amount of time. From unboxing to kids sliding down it took my wife and I about 3.5 hours to build. We first put all the parts aside to ensure we had everything. We then assembled each individual piece of the slide; in other words we attached the top part to the bottom part for the sections of the slide. In order to make this go very quickly and easily I used a deep socket to hold the nut in place and then attached a nut driver to my impact drill and drilled the bolts tight. This saved a ton of time because if you had to do this by hand without a drill it would literally take forever. Here is where we changed the script; instead of building the slide in entirety and then lifting it up and attaching it to the swing set we attached the top piece of the slide to the swing set and then added the next piece to the first piece installed and so on and so forth. I was initially worried that this would be too much weight pulling on the pieces that were assembled but it ended up being fine and this was way easier then holding up this 80 pound slide and trying to get the pieces to line up to the circular cutout that was attached to the swing set. The slide is great and the kids love it. As far as sturdiness is concerned, I'm 6'2 and 240 pounds and I go down the slide no problem at all. I would recomend and certainly buy again. Also, one other thing to note, I bought the slide for $485 and like a week later it was $399. The price fluctuates greatly so keep your eyes peeled for good deals.

Assembling this slide is tedious and the instructions aren’t the best. As others have commented, the slide sections go together much easier if you let them heat up in the sun before and while you’re assembling. Follow what the instructions say regarding bolts - do not skip holes just to get the pieces together before installing all of the bolts. I’m impressed with the rigidness of the assembly once it’s attached to the playset and supported on the ground. I recommended not digging 3” below grade under the slide as the instructions say at first, unless you need the clearance due to deck height or grade. My biggest gripe with the product is missing hardware. I needed ~ 10 washers and lock nuts, and 2 1-1/2” bolts to complete the install. Luckily I had some on hand to use, but that’s a pretty unacceptable number of parts IMO.

really good looking and also sturdy. please with the purchase. it was easy to set up the only thing was the bottom part to attach but overall easy

Very satisfied and quick delivery