Leifheit LinoProtect Ground Socket Ø 50 mm, Turquoise, Replacement Ground Socket for LinoProtect

Leifheit Rotary Washing Line Centring Ground Socket (Screw In)The Leifheit rotary clothes driers have a 5cm dia. central shaft and need a substantial ground socket to support them. There are two options - one comes with the drier and needs to be cemented into the ground or the alternative is this one that screws into the ground. The information about the screw option says that there is a leveling mechanism inside the socket which allows adjustments to be made to achieve the vertical even if the screw is a little "off". That had appeal so I bought one. The appearance is quite a long socket made from a very strong plastic with a substantial screw and a sharp spike.Following the instructions I cut a pilot hole with a piece of 1cm pipe and checked for the vertical - fine so far. Then the ground was watered to facilitate easy entry. The screw went in quite easily using the metal bar provided although the last inch was awkward being so close to the lawn. The Leifheit drier was then presented to the socket - it was off by about 15 degrees to the vertical. The next hour and a half was spent making adjustments without ever achieving an acceptable vertical. There were several "give up" moments and a good deal of unacceptable language before a less than perfect result was obtained which reduced the angle to a broadly acceptable degree although every time the drier is used it just emphasises that there must be a better way. The leaning drier of Pisa !!!!!!!!!When the drier is not in use a large black cap closes off the socket and a black collar sitting around the edge prevents it from savage attacks from the lawn mower and this makes an ugly black blob in the lawn.Reading other reviews it appears to work for some so is it luck ? I followed the instructions to the letter and did not achieve an acceptable result. If I worked at Leifheit making well engineered rotary clothes driers selling at figures in the region of £150, I would get someone onto this as a matter of urgency as performance of these expensive driers and therefore future sales will be affected by this ground socket that delivers less than perfect results.

Having had one of the Leifheit rotary driers in the garage for over a year, waiting for me to get around to replacing our very old, very tired and substantially broken rotary drier, I eventually got around to it, only to find the supplied ground peg was one that had to be cemented into place via a very large hole and and one of those bricks with the holes in it to keep it in situ whilst carefully pouring in a ton of concrete mix and praying that it stays level and doesn't rain. So I bought this device instead, figuring the mechanism to centre it once installed would remove any likelihood of me not putting it in dead square. It's a very sturdy peg, and very long, so it should stay intact and in place.Our ground is very clay heavy and is almost perpetually wet, so getting the screw in was slow going, but not too arduous. I got it almost (but not quite) level, so the centring system helped to iron out that and worked easily enough. The peg protrudes from the ground a fair bit, but as it's in a bit of the garden which has no lawn, only gravel, this doesn't present any issues. The drier rotates freely in the peg and hasn't moved an inch since I fitted it, even when it's been loaded unevenly.It comes with a handy cap to close off the end of the peg when you take out the drier, so it doesn't get full of water and dirt, although I expect in the less clement months, I'll just put the cover over the drier and leave it in situ.

First impressions of the socket were that it was well made and a very clever design as it is always difficult to get a plain, screw in socket vertical. I had no problem adjusting this one to take out the error resulting from screwing it into the ground. The socket initially performed really well but, less than 6 months on and the locking arrangement on the lower ring has failed. I can set it up perfectly but the instant the wind blows the washing it takes the pressure off the mechanism and the line spins round and leans in the direction the wind is blowing to. In short, great idea but absolutely useless.

With a new Leifheit rotary drier, I mistakenly thought it would fit in our existing ground socket that, albeit a Brabantia socket, was theoretically the same diameter as the Leifheit. Wrong...the Leifheit drier post was fractionally wider. Much wailing and grinding of teeth followed so we ordered this, the recommended Leifheit model.Relatively easy to install in our lawn if you have available brute force ( you literally screw it slowly into the ground with the socket having holes that you pass a small supplied rod through to give a temporary handle to turn), the main negative for us is that it protrudes significantly above the lawn. The protective cap fits over and partly down the side over the exposed socket for a height of a few cm. Creates something to have to mow around/ strip and avoid tripping on, a bit of a pain in other words.One solution is to continue driving it into the ground until it is not exposed , cut off the cap and use another means of protecting the exposed socket, if you so wish. Using the handle to do this means temporarily removing some grass etc to a depth a a few inches to allow you to use the handle to screw the socket down another inch or so but it was the only way we could find to getting the socket to finish flush with the lawn.Was relatively easy to keep the socket going down straight, you can always adjust by ' unscrewing' as required.Recommended as needed for a Leifheit but with the significant caveat re the potential issue of it protruding above the lawn surface.

I ordered this as I did not want to concrete my spike in and it is very sturdy. It's got a handy red cover so you can remove the line and close the hole up. My only problem was screwing it in the ground, as the spike is quite wide it's tough going. I found the solution was to get another metal tube put it over the metal bar provided for screwing in the spike which gave extra leverage so easy once I worked that out. Actually I think I read it on another review - old scaffolding is perfect, I actually used the end of my old metal washing line same effect. The other thing I'm going to do in the autumn is cut out some turf around the spike so I can get it below the height of the lawn for mowing. I am probably going to get another one so I've got two places to put the line as parts of my garden get more sun in the winter than other. But yes expensive but sturdy does a good job and being a girlie was great I could put it in without calling on some random fella - Miss independant!!