Do You Need To Take Down Your Trampoline Before A Minnesota Winter?

During the COVID lockdowns there were a few items that seemed to be in higher demand than they would be during normal times. I remember toilet paper being hard to come by for a bit and, of course, N95 masks were gone before the lockdowns even started.

Another thing we had a hard time getting our hands on during the spring/summer of 2020 was a reasonably priced outdoor trampoline. Most stores simply were out of stock, while a few were charging $300-400 for one.

We had one on backorder and it arrived just in time for winter. So just a couple of weeks after we assembled it, my wife asked me to take it down and move the parts to the garage where they would stay dry.

While I had never heard of this being done before, I had to admit it made sense. After all, we can get several feet of snow over the course of a typical winter, which in theory would stretch the jumping surface and rust/stretch the springs as well.

Is this a universal practice? No. My informal survey, which consisted of me keeping an eye out for trampolines while driving through my neighborhood, saw only about 20-30% of trampoline owners disassembling their trampolines before the snow hit. In fact, my next-door neighbor and the one behind us leave them up all year... and to be honest they look no worse for the wear.

Trampoline manufacturers -generally- recommend either taking down the springs/jumping surface, along with the mat that covers the spring. However, some say that trampoline owners can get away with leaving them up... provided they go out and clear the jumping surface of snow every so often.

It definitely is a bit of a PITA to set up/take down the trampoline every season, but to me it sounds preferable to trudging through my snow-drifted lawn several times a winter to sweep the thing!