Expert to Beginner

A House Still Lucky To Be In The Trees

My tree house attachment method met with some failure last week, and Im lucky the tree house is still in the trees.

Somethings not quite right . . .

I began my tree house construction by researching methods of attachment which would allow the trees to move without tearing the tree house apart. I came upon the Garnier Limb, which is a special bolt designed to hold a tree house. When combined with the appropriate corresponding bracket, the Garnier Limb allows the tree house to move interdependently of the trees. Becuase Garnier Limbs were so expensive, I came up with a similar method which used commercially available 3/4" galvanized bolts.


I wrote about my attachment design process in my first Tree House post. Dan Wright of treehousespupplies.com commented that my method would only hold 10% of what their Treehouse Attachment Bolt would hold and that. I acknowledged that my design was weaker, but I thought would still be more than strong enough.

Last Thursday I woke to find that I was wrong. As I walked out to my truck on my way to work, I noticed that the tree house didnt look quite right. Once I made it across the yard and to the tree house, I found that one of the bolt had sheared at the tree, and a corner of the tree house deck was hanging down about 18".

I immediately made supports out of some scrap 2x8 to prevent further damage. That night I made more permanent temporary supports out of sistered 2x4. I added one of these supports to each of the three (3) corners held up by my homemade tree house support.
On reflection, I suppose the Garnier Limb or Treehouse Attachment Bolt would have been a better option. At least the failure that did occur didnt hurt anyone and nothing is damaged beyond repair.

In the coming weeks Ill get back to it and the tree house will soon be as good as new.