Balcony Slide

Hi!

We are 3 friends living in a house where the living room is on the first floor.
On our balcony, it's very cosy, but small, so if somenone is visiting on a sunny day, we sit in the garden.

Because we want to go to the garden without going inside and taking the stairs,

we made a slide from the balcony to the garden. (check the movie!)
In this instructable, you can find how we did that!

Enjoy!

The height of our balcony is 2,5 m To determine the lenght of the slide, we used trigonometry.
We wanted quite a steep slide, so we took a slope of 40°.

MATERIALS:

- Concrete plywood (it slides very well and the top layer is water resistant) (width: 60 cm, thickness: 3 cm)
- 2 thick beams (10x10x360 cm)
- Planed wood as handrails, you can choose the thickness and kind of wood (watch out for splinters!) (min. 4 cm)

- Screws with countersunk head (25x5)

- Screws with countersunk head (15 x5)

OPTIONAL:

- Bolts with rounded head
- Iron plates (originally hinges)

Because the slide will stand outside in all kinds of weather conditions, we provided the planed wood ande side borders of the concrete plywood with 3 layers of varnish.
When the slide is ready, it's also important to varnish the places where screws are inserted.

THIS STEP IS OPTIONAL!

Because we used two pieces of plywood, we wanted to make sure they didn't get seperated over time. Therefore, we connected them with 8 bolts with rounded head. Make sure the bolts are deep enough so it doesn't hurt when you slide.

Drill holes at distances of 30-40 cm in the plywood with bevel at the edges 5 cm from the borders. Lay the wooden beams parallel to each other on the floor. If you lay the plywood on the beams, you can make sure the borders of the plywood match the sides of the beams. Now, screw the plywood to the beams in the drilled holes. Use the long screws.

Drill holes at distances of 30-40 cm in the planed wood with bevel at the edges 2 cm from the lower border. Hold the wood against the side of the plywood. Make sure the screw will enter the middle of the plywood and the borders stick out at the sliding side. Now, screw the borders to the plywood in the drilled holes. Use the short screws.

Put the slide with the top on the balcony and the bottom at the floor. When the floor is grass or soil, it's not necessary to provide an extra anchoring because the bottom of the beams will embed in the grass. As you can see on the picture, it's quite a firm construction.