Swing hanging straps can be a great replacement for bulky chains that rust, pinch fingers, and can kill your tree. Today, we’re going to walk through how you would install them in a variety of applications.
The process goes like this:
- Attach your strap or rope to the limb or swing set to hold the tire
- Prepare your tire for the swing (decide on a vertical or horizontal configuration)
- Hang your tire from the strap on the tree
How to Install a Swing Strap Around a Limb or Post
One of the best features of using straps when installing a new tree swing is that they distribute the load of the swing and rider over a wider surface area. As a result, the bark and limb aren’t damaged, and you can insure that even your children’s children will be able to swing from that same spot.
To attach your strap to the limb, follow the directions below:
- Measure to get the correct strap length
- Loop the strap around the tree and pass one end back through the loop at the end
- Pull the strap tight
- If needed, you can wrap the strap around multiple times to increase the height of the swing
Once you’ve decided how tall your limb or play set post is and ordered the correct length strap, simply loop the webbed end of the strap around the post and pass the end back through the webbed loop
Why Using a Strap is Better Than a Rope or Chain
Have you ever seen a tree swing rope or chain cutting into the bark of the limb it’s hooked to? When the bark of a tree is compromised, it can allow ants, beetles, or disease to infect the tree. Think of the bark of a tree like our skin, it protects our bodies from all sorts of dangers.
Have you ever gotten a splinter that was in so deep that you decided not to get it out?
Remember how swollen and sore it was as your body tried to reject the foreign material?
It really slows down the healing process when that splinter stays in! Actually, your body doesn’t completely heal until your immune system attacks and removes the splinter.
Well, trees work in a similar way.
When a chain or a rope cuts into the bark of the tree and stays there, it prevents the “skin” of the tree (the bark) from healing completely and growing back over the inside of the limb to keep it healthy.
For trees, if the bark is removed or damaged without a chance to heal, it’s not uncommon for the limb to die and fall off altogether. Hopefully, it’s not on your kids.
That’s why we like to use straps instead.
How to Turn Your Tire Into a Tire Swing
If you’re hanging a tire swing, you can use our 4′ swing hanging straps to connect the tire to your main swing hanging strap. They are included in our tire swing kits.
How to Hang Your Tire Vertically
If you hang the tire vertically, you can simply wrap the strap around the tire just like you did with the tree limb.
How to Hang Your Tire Horizontally for Multiple Kids
If you plan to hang the tire horizontally so that multiple kids can sit and swing together, then you’ll need our tire swing kit. They are made just for this purpose with rust-resistant stainless steel and extra wide washers to grip the rubber on the tire.
Here’s the process to hang your tire horizontally with our tire swing kit hardware:
- Drill 3/8 – 1/2″holes for the bolts and install them into the tire at 3 evenly spaced locations
- Connect the straps to the bolts
- Attach the tops of the straps to the strap from the tree limb or swing set using the provided carabiner
To connect the strap to the bolts, simply pass the looped end of the strap through the center of the bolt (like threading the head of a needle). Then, pass the other end of the strap through the looped end and pull the strap tight. You can watch the video below to see how that’s done.
If you’re really a detail-oriented person, you can even fold the webbing in half in the loop so that it lays neatly around the ring of the bolt. 🙂
Here’s a video to walk you through the whole process:
Now that you have all of the pieces, it’s just a matter of using carabiners to snap everything together, and you’re ready to swing.
I’m sure your kids or grandkids will love their new tire swing just as much as ours love theirs. If you have any problems getting things set up, just send leave a comment below with your problem, and we’ll get you squared away.