Outdoor Play
Buy and sell outdoor play in Costa Rica.
A 12-foot trampoline with its net, a plastic playground with a slide and a swing for a toddler, a home inflatable bought so you stop renting one for every birthday: this is the gear that lives in the patio, new and pre-owned, alongside the bikes and scooters children take out onto the street. Most of it is big, comes apart in pieces and changes hands when a family moves house or the youngest outgrows it. So the two questions worth asking first are whether every piece is there, and how many rainy seasons it has stood outside.
Outdoor play beyond the bike and the scooter:
the two things children ride have their own pages, bikes for kids and scooters for kids, and the gear that stays in the yard sits here. Trampolines are the biggest purchase of the lot. Playground sets come in two families: moulded plastic sets from brands such as Little Tikes or Step2, with a short slide and a swing, made for children under five; and metal or wooden swing frames for older children, which need anchoring in the ground. Inflatables split the same way, into light nylon home bouncers and the heavy PVC castles that party-rental businesses use.
Trampoline size measured against the patio:
measure the space, not the child. Backyard trampolines are sold by diameter in feet, from 8 to 14, and a 12-foot one with a net is the usual family size. Each needs a clear margin of about two metres beyond the frame, with no wall, fence, branch or washing line within reach of a bounce, so a 12-foot one asks for far more yard than the label suggests. In a condominium garden or a small patio, an 8-foot model or a toddler trampoline with a handlebar is the realistic choice. Whatever the size, the net and the spring pad are what make one sensible for children.
Party inflatables, rented by the afternoon:
in Costa Rica a bounce castle is usually hired for a birthday, delivered and set up, for about ₡25,000 to ₡65,000 for a few hours. That fee is the yardstick for the whole yard. A new 12-foot trampoline with a net starts around ₡130,000, the cost of two or three party rentals, and gets used every afternoon. A home inflatable pays its way for a family that throws several parties a year and has somewhere dry to store it. A used commercial PVC castle is another purchase entirely: heavy enough to need a pickup and three people to move, with a blower built to run for hours, and it mostly interests someone planning to rent it out.
A trampoline after a rainy season in the yard:
shows it in the springs first. From May to November most outdoor gear stands in daily rain, and galvanised steel holds up only until the coating is scratched; then the frame rusts at the leg joints and the springs rust and lose their pull. Count them, because one or two always go missing when a trampoline is moved, and look for fraying where the mat is stitched to the spring rings. The net and the foam sleeves on the poles are what the sun destroys, and on an older trampoline they are the price of a used one, since both usually need replacing. On a metal swing frame, check the welds and the hooks the seats hang from. On a wooden set, push a screwdriver into the posts where they meet the soil and look for the mud tubes of termites. Ask to see an inflatable blown up: listen to the blower, run a hand along the seams, and ask whether it was ever packed away wet, because mould in the folds does not wash out.
Taking a trampoline apart before the buyer arrives:
it saves an afternoon and proves every piece is there. Photograph it standing first, in daylight with the net up, then lay out the frame tubes, legs, springs and poles together and photograph that. Give the diameter, the brand, the number of springs, how long it stood outside and what has already been replaced. For a playground set, say which parts are anchored and have to be dug out; for an inflatable, add a video of it filling and say whether the blower and stakes go with it. Whoever drives in from Desamparados or Nicoya for a 12-foot trampoline will come with a pickup, expecting the tubes tied in a bundle and the springs counted into a bag.