Backyard Adventures of San Diego

1.5 years AFTER installation of playhouse with attached slide and double swing.
Why only 2 stars? Because, it is reasonable to expect normal wear and tear on playground equipment, be it in your own backyard or elsewhere. After my kids swing set started creaking, I figured it was time for a thorough inspection and some TLC. I climbed the ladder to get a close look at the brackets holding up the swing chains. First look, appeared that the nuts on cariage bolts were just backing out a bit. OK, normal, to be expected, no big deal. I’ll just tighten them up. 4 hours and $ 27.00 later, I am finally done. What else did I find wrong?
The install guy (and his teenage son… should have set off alarms in my head) used the wrong THICKNESS carriage bolts. The pre-​drilled holes in the corss beam and in the brackets are a full ½″. Dude used ¼ inch carriage bolts with thin’flimsy fender washers on top and nuts with the plastic inner sleeve (self locking) to connect up the brackets. Physics. Use too thin of a bolt and expect lots of side to side play which = premature and inevitable loosening. Also, NOT SAFE! The flimsy washers were bending in on themselves in the center which, if left unchecked, could eventually let go of the bolt head resulting in total failure. Not LIKELY and impossible under my watchful eye but…
Bottom line, why did I have to spend ½ of my Saturday and $ 27.00 doing the job RIGHT when I paid Backyard Adventures $ 3,607.81 for the complete set up with install? I won’t go so far as to downgrade to 1 star becuase my kids love the product and all other components seem to be holding up nicely. But the install was BOTCHED and this guy is THEIR GUY for installs. I call B.S. on this one.