My husband was able to put this together mainly by himself in a few hours. The set is very sturdy. My preschool kids love it, the only problem is that the slide gets REALLY hot. There have been a few years because they didn't check it before they went down. The other parts of the set do not have this problem. We are in CA so our summers are very hot, but none of my other plastic slides from Step 2 or Little Tikes have had this issue.