How To Build a Swing Set

Children love to swing and swinging can keep them occupied for hours on those long summer days. Metal swing sets can rust and fall apart after one or two summers of use. However, a well built wooden swing set can last for years and complement your landscaping as well. They are also heavier and less likely to tip when larger children swing high into the air. This increases the years of use your children play on a swing set. How do you build a swing set?

1. Cut your 12-foot 1x6 treated lumber into half making two 6-foot pieces. These will provide stability between the upright legs of your swing set.

2. Drill eight holes in your main beam this is the 12-foot 4x4. These are where you will put the eyebolts to attach the swings. From each end, the first bolt should be about 17-inches in from the end. Each remaining bolt should be about 17-inches apart.

3. Drill two holes in each upright and in the side of the main beam where you will use the steal braces to attach the main beam to the upright leg. Use a permanent marker to indicate where you need to drill the holes by laying the steel braces on the wood.

4. Install the eight six-inch eyebolts into the main beam. The eye should be on the bottom to hang the swings. Put a washer on before you put the nut on to prevent the bolt from working its way through the beam. Tighten the nuts. It is easier to install these on the ground then it is up in the air.

5. Lay your upright legs, two 10-foot, 4x4s on the ground at approximately a 45-degree angle. Lay the steel trapezoid shaped brackets on the leg ends and adjust the angle so the bracket doesn't overhang. Use your 3-inch nails to attach the bracket to the upright legs. Flip the legs over and attach another bracket to the other side. Lay your six-foot 1x6 across the legs where it fits without much overhang. Use your 3-inch nails to attach the board to each leg. Repeat these steps for the other set of legs.

6. Bolt a steel brace to the main beam using two 6-inch bolts in the holes you drilled earlier. Secure the bolts with a washer and a nut. Repeat this step on the other end of the main beam. Flip the main beam over and repeat these steps to attach steel braces to the other side on both ends.

7. Bolt the other end of the steel brace to the legs that you attached together earlier. Use two six-inch bolts secured by washers and nuts. Repeat on both sides and both ends.

8. Tip the swing set upright onto the legs. Attach the "S" hook to the eye of the eight eyebolts you installed earlier. Hang your swings from the "S" hooks. Use your pliers to tighten the "S" hooks so the swings cannot unhook. Start swinging and have fun.

Source : http://www.ehow.com/how_4475333_build-swing-set.html

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SAVE Money by using solar lights

Solar Lighting is a new technique to light up your home and assets. While you have many choices to light your house, the most cheap and cost-effectively sound way is to use solar power. Even if you don't want to use solar power to run your entire home, you can still help lower your energy costs and use less non-renewable resources by using Solar Lighting.

If you choose Solar Lighting to smarten your home, or even if you just need them for security, this is the just right choice. You can save money while adding value to your home by maintenance it lit at night, and you can also feel superior about your role to helping the atmosphere. Even a small use of solar power cuts down on our confidence on fossil fuels and other funds, so choose this type of lighting should make you feel good. If nobody else, it will also cut your electric invoice and every modest bit helps these days.

Illusions4real’s solar lights are energy efficient and work automatically. You don't have to think twice about how long they have been on because they are resources friendly. Illusions4real one good way to cut your budget and save on utility bills. Relax happily while the lights are on and you know you aren't paying whatever thing. Receiving equipment free can be a good reaction but getting free lighting is something else.

Illusions4real have become more recognizable and popular in recent years for Solar Lighting. Now there is a wide selection of these lights that you can choose from. They are used for simple things such as lighting a garden or walkway to light parking lots or runway. It's difficult to find a place where they aren't organism used.

Illusions4real is excellent for Solar Lighting different areas inexpensively. They will save you a lot of money on your electric invoice. Best of all they are a way to help encourage a cleaner location.

Illusions4real.com is wholesale manufacturer & Supplier of Solar water heating, Led Lighting, Solar Lighting, Solar Lantern, solar craft and many more energy saving solutions.

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Bio-fuels Made by Recycling Vegetable Oil

With the increasing emphasis on global warming and the environment, both consumers and corporations are becoming ever more committed and educated about environmental conservation and are taking positive steps. Consumers are recycling at home in ever greater numbers - transforming organic waste by composting in home composters, or recycling in council supplied recycling bins for larger scale processing. The benefits to this are a reduction in carbon emissions, reduced waste and valuable by-products for onward use.

Businesses and public sector bodies are compelled by law to follow certain environmental preservation rules and heavy penalties are in place for those organisations that don't adhere to the rules. Waste products must be disposed of carefully and in accordance with the law to avoid pollution and there are targets around recycled products.

The good thing about recycling organic and food matter in particular is that there are clear routes into making useful products from it. Fruit and vegetable matter can be composted to produce soil rich in nutrients for more plants to grow. Even for restaurants and caterers that produce significant volumes of waste vegetable oils in the course of their business, there are opportunities for making a usable by-product from it, rather than disposing of the oil.

This bio-oil is becoming an industry in itself - and the biodiesel that results can be used as a petrol alternative to power machinery and even cars. Restaurants have the option of selling their used waste oils to recycling companies who will charge to collect and process the waste product from the catering companies. The oil and grease is then processed and re-sold on the market for a profit. It's a perfect example as to how a waste product can become a useful and usable onward product and allow new businesses to exist and make a profit through recycling.

Producing biofuel or biodiesel at home however isn't an easy business and consumers should be wary. There are very obvious and real dangers relating to any flammable products and toxic materials. To process waste grease into usable oil takes knowledge, intensive labour and carefully controlled environments. Storage is also a consideration and small scale providers will find that their production and storage costs may outweigh the fuel value that results.

However for consumers there are good opportunities to be had by converting car engines to take biofuels and some people have done this already, taking advantage of a growing recycling market. It's important to weigh up the pros and cons and is likely to be less worthwhile or indeed possible for newer car models that are designed to use fuel efficiently - but for older gas guzzling cars, a converter kit could save useful sums and help to support the environment.

Specialist garages can carry out the conversion work and many filling stations now sell alternative fuels on the forecourt - check with local providers to find out more. Certainly over the next decade or so, we will be seeing far more of these type of schemes to re-use and recycle our waste products, as fossil fuel levels decrease and the need for environmental management becomes ever more critical.

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Go Green : 3 Benefits Will You Get

There are those who say that it can have its benefits. Most only think about it briefly and then become so busy doing things their usual way they have no time to really try it. Sometimes they stick to the old ways because they are afraid of the new. Lack of understanding what is involved stope others. Other times they never start because they don't know how. Still others may just be unaware of the benefits they could enjoy.

Once you really understand about it, the things that have been holding you back fade away. Let's have a look at the 3 main reasons that people decide to live green.

Reason Number 1, you will save on heating and cooling. You make a valid point when you point out that going green is expensive I concede your point, but the costs are usually partially subsidized by your government.

Second, eating green/organic is much healthier. Plus, by eating all natural, organically grown/raised food, you know exactly what is going into your body. And there is less of a chance of getting the cancers that are now common place in the industrialized world

Third and last, you will save the world for your children, and children's children. This will mean that you will become the hero you dreamed about as a child, but in a different way. You will help create a more sustainable world, a healthier world and a world that will last for years to come.. And again, you will be the stuff of legends!

Consider those three reasons, evaluate them, think about them. Once you do, I'm betting that you will easily see that they are more than sufficient to justify trying to go green. Do they convince you?

Garden Design, advice, & ideas for garden decor, furniture, photos, & living green; for readers who are passionate about having the best gardens

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