Weighing down our new gazebo - any ideas?

[Zonny]

Greetings all:

We bought a gazebo for our deck during the recent tax free sale at Superstore. It was only sale for $179, then no tax, we're really pleased with it.

Only thing now is that it needs to be weighted down so it won't blow away. Right now we're using sacks of sand which doesn't look very good and isn't terribly effective.

We can't strap it down with bungee cords since there's not enough space between the deck boards, and we don't want to drill holes through the deck. Who's got an idea? Maybe there's things that can be filled with water to weigh down each of the four legs?

[Patty Smyth]

I drilled mine into the deck. lol Sorry but when the wind whips up it's the only thing that will save it.

[Lynn49]

Drilled ours into our deck...steady as a rock through the very high winds we've had here. I don't think there's any other way, Hon...a few holes won't harm your deck, since you can always wood-fill them in later, but really...once you've had a gazebo you'll never not want to be without it again! I've got one more curtain to finish for ours, and I hung a little candle crystal chandelier from the centre and it's so gorgeous out there at night...candle on the table, and colour changing lights in the garden...it's heavenly!

[Eeyah]

My mom bought planters and had my dad cement the legs in, and then the top 4-ish inches she filled with soild and planted flowers. For them it works perfectly. Each base is weighs about 30 lbs so its not too heavy to move and store in the winter

[Lynn49]

What a good idea that is, too, Eeyah!!

[walkonby]

Greetings all:

We bought a gazebo for our deck during the recent tax free sale at Superstore. It was only sale for $179, then no tax, we're really pleased with it.

Only thing now is that it needs to be weighted down so it won't blow away. Right now we're using sacks of sand which doesn't look very good and isn't terribly effective.

We can't strap it down with bungee cords since there's not enough space between the deck boards, and we don't want to drill holes through the deck. Who's got an idea? Maybe there's things that can be filled with water to weigh down each of the four legs?

Well Zonny

We had 2 before this one. Yes we like other members drilled our second one securely into the deck (after the first one lifted right up and over into my neighbours backyard ( and I looked out my top bedroom window one day and thought " hey they have a gazebo just like ours " ...just too blonde for words. )
Anyway second gazebo that was secured, became a twisted bunch of metal from some horrible weather ( wind) and we had to go onto buy # 3.
So far so good, metal is better gauge I suppose. However summer has just begun.
One thing I do now is if the wind is really bad I keep the curtains all opened up ( unzipped ) so the air cannot pool inside.
Not so much help am I...sorry

[TheOriginalTruffles]

We secured ours by drilling into our deck.

[Zonny]

Thanks for all the ideas all! I'm kind of against drilling because we have a carport underneath - if it's raining, I can remain fairly dry under there!

I've put a call out on Facebook asking for ideas. Several suggested drilling it (which I haven't ruled out), one suggested the flowerpot idea that Eeyah mentioned, which sounds cool. But so far the easiest idea is to get some buckets of some kind (I have 11 litre ice cream buckets that would do well), screw them to the feet of the gazebo and fill the buckets with sand or rocks.

I've looked a bit online, there are things that are designed for this but you fill them with water or sand. Can't find any locally though. I've also thought that maybe a concrete place would have doughnut-shaped weights made exactly for this purpose. I'll figure out what I'm doing this week!

[miztia]

What about getting a few square or round patio stones for each leg and drilling into that? I saw some small round stepping stones at CT.

[Lynn49]

Well Zonny

We had 2 before this one. Yes we like other members drilled our second one securely into the deck (after the first one lifted right up and over into my neighbours backyard ( and I looked out my top bedroom window one day and thought " hey they have a gazebo just like ours " ...just too blonde for words. )
Anyway second gazebo that was secured, became a twisted bunch of metal from some horrible weather ( wind) and we had to go onto buy # 3.
So far so good, metal is better gauge I suppose. However summer has just begun.
One thing I do now is if the wind is really bad I keep the curtains all opened up ( unzipped ) so the air cannot pool inside.
Not so much help am I...sorry

Wow....one really twisted, eh? I never thought of that; I hope ours is sturdy enough, but so far has nicely resisted the tornado-like winds we had early last month..."a gazebo just like ours"........thanks for my morning giggle!

[Lynn49]

Thanks for all the ideas all! I'm kind of against drilling because we have a carport underneath - if it's raining, I can remain fairly dry under there!

I've put a call out on Facebook asking for ideas. Several suggested drilling it (which I haven't ruled out), one suggested the flowerpot idea that Eeyah mentioned, which sounds cool. But so far the easiest idea is to get some buckets of some kind (I have 11 litre ice cream buckets that would do well), screw them to the feet of the gazebo and fill the buckets with sand or rocks.

I've looked a bit online, there are things that are designed for this but you fill them with water or sand. Can't find any locally though. I've also thought that maybe a concrete place would have doughnut-shaped weights made exactly for this purpose. I'll figure out what I'm doing this week!

Zonny, if drilling is still a consideration, remember that you can caulk around the drill-site to keep water contained on your deck and prevent it from seeping through...just a thought...