About Plum's Wood

ROUND POLE

Round Pole Wood is an organic material, it is always trying its hardest to adapt to its changing environment. It moves, it swells and it shrinks; all normal behaviour for Round Poles.

Often, naturally occurring splits will appear in the poles. In warm sunny weather the wood shrinks, in wet weather it expands; the moisture content can reduce by 50% in warm weather conditions depending on where you are in the planet. These environmental changes cause the cracks. We design our round poles to be thick and strong so natural wood splits won't affect the overall strength of the pole.

Safety is as important to Plum® as having fun and we’d like to reassure our customers that the majority of wood splits will never become deep or wide enough to affect the reliability and strength of our swing sets.

DIMENSIONAL TIMBER

Small openings and hairline splits will occur when the dimensional timber becomes wet and then dries out. This often happens when the timber is doused in a rain shower and dries out afterwards in the sun. Each Plum® wooden playset has tolerances built into it, to allow for natural occurrences such as these; they are designed to ensure that the structural integrity is not compromised.

WOOD TREATMENT AND COLOURATION

Certified FSC® pine from Northern and Central Europe is used in both Plum® round pole and dimensional play centres and swing sets. To make sure it is as resilient as possible, the wood is vacuum pressure treated. This safeguards it against wood-destroying insects and fungi that can cause soft-rot.

After the treatment process it is natural for a green mottling to become visible on the surface of the wood. This colouration is caused when the copper based treatment, which serves as the preservative, reacts with the resin already present in the timber.

Pressure treatment is a vitally important process in increasing the long term resilience of the wood. Innovation in our timber treated products ensures that the preservative is both weather-resistant and safe to humans and your garden plants alike.

Wood is a natural product so requires some care and maintenance as it weathers over time. Periodically check over the whole product, sand away any sharp points and surface scaling and follow the timber advice in the instruction manual. It is important to maintain the condition of timber products to ensure both safety and longevity, full maintenance guidelines are provided with each Plum play set.