Now that we have come to the end of the winter it is time to take a look at your garden shed in Horsham because that generally bleak season can cause a great deal of problems to your shed or workshop. The winter itself is not the most popular season but it does include Christmas and the New Year and that is the time for reflection. Looking forward to the Spring with the fresh flowers, vegetables and warmth is a great feeling. When Spring arrives you know that there should be about 8 months of better weather and longer evenings to enjoy the great outdoors and your garden. Your garden shed may feel a little tired from the battering it may have got, you may find cracks in the window panes or the shed roofing felt may have been ripped. These are things you really need to address sooner rather than later. Because if you don’t it will deteriorate even more and next winter might be the final straw. Take a look at the shed door, has it dropped? If so, take the time to re-hang the hinges and realign the shed door bolt so that it slides freely.
If the felt on the shed roof is damaged take the opportunity to refelt your shed. If the felt is laying flat you can felt over the top of the old felt however if the felt is flapping about and torn you will be better to remove the old felt and recover your garden shed with new felt. Take a look at the glass in the windows. Are the window panes cracked? Again if so remove the glass, carefully, from the shed windows and replace. If they are just dirty then give them a good clean.
If any of the shed boards are split or have dropped again take the time to repair or replace them. If a great number of the boards are split or have dropped it may be worth thinking about whether your garden shed has passed its usefulness in Horsham and you may wish to consider a new shed.
1st Choice Leisure Buildings have an extensive range of quality garden sheds in every size to suit your needs. All these wooden sheds will also be assembled free on your base to save you time and effort. You will also find that all these sheds are quality buildings built to a standard and not down to a price. You can take a look at the Independent customer comments on this site.
You also need to take a look at the treatment on your shed as the winter would have done its worse. Now is the time to re-treat your shed but only use a spirit, solvent or oil based treatment not the water based treatment. By doing this you will ensure that the treatment gets right into the wood for long lasting protection. Before applying the treatment clean the outside of your garden shed with a stiff brush to remove any loose dirt or debris because if you don’t the treatment won’t be able to do its job properly.
So your garden shed should be appealing to the eye and not an eyesore because if the shed looks good you are more likely to keep it organised and well used. You may find that the cheap (and nasty) sheds are OK during the warmer drier months but the Winter will really show the flaws in the cheap materials used. The chipboard, OSB boarded or sheet materials roofs will be falling to bits when any damp got on them and you will need a new roof. It’s false economy to go for these type of cheap sheds and all shed roofs should only be made for proper timber T&G boards, which is the case with all 1st Choice’s garden sheds.
You may also wish to consider at this time of the year a spring clean of your shed inside. You will find accumulated junk from over the years in Horsham reducing the amount of space inside the shed for everyday uses. I, for one, am guilty of this and I really need to practice what I preach, before my wife reads this and start to make ‘strongly worded comments’ to me. (otherwise know as n*****g) The worse thing she is probably right because a garden sheds company owner should show an example.
With this recession which started back in 2008 it appears that gardeners are being more cautious about spending their money, which makes sense. This means that the sales of garden sheds and garden buildings has stagnated and in many cases fallen and this has followed on this year. Over the Easter period, where gardeners tend to get out and about into their garden and to the Horsham garden centres, it was shown that sales in the garden sector including outdoor garden buildings and sheds was down on previous years. Garden Experts has established that this sector has not got off to its usual start with people spending money on garden sheds and other garden produce down by about 6%. It is possible because Easter was early this could have had an effect and it was a little chilly so this could have contributed to this fall. Why Easter has to keep moving I don’t know – it’s a complete mystery to me!
It was established that shoppers are being a lot more careful and being a lot more ‘matter of fact’ about their purchases. It appears that the spending furore of just a few years ago has elapsed and using common sense in any purchase in the main consideration.
The strange thing is that quality well made garden sheds are being preferred to the cheap sheds found on the Internet or in the large DIY stores. This means that the gardener is thinking about the money he spends and investing in solid quality buildings which becomes an investment for the future rather than buying a cheap shed which will only last a few years before it needs replacing. The problem with the cheap sheds is that they use a lot of chipboard type materials on the shed floors and roofs and as soon as these get wet the shed start to disintegrate. You really need to ensure that the vulnerable floors and roofs are made from proper T&G timber boarding.
1st Choice Leisure Buildings can help. You will not find any chipboard, OSB board or sheet materials on any of their garden sheds, only proper T&G timber boards. These shed roofs won’t fall to pieces before your eyes at the 1st sign of rain. With quality redwood deal T&G cladding on the sheds, not the cheap inferior white wood, on a solid timber frame work of at least 2×2.
The reason for this knowledge which 1st Choice has is that they start making garden sheds in 1979 so have over 40 years of shed making experience. In the early years the cheaper methods of making sheds with chipboard and cheap white wood were tried and quickly rejected. The key to their success is their garden sheds, summer buildings and garden buildings are made to a standard and not DOWN to a price.
This is good business practice. As well as this you can actually view their garden sheds, garden workshops and summer buildings close to Horsham and this gives you the opportunity to physically examine the quality. You don’t get this option with cheap garden shed makers as they don’t want you so see beforehand as the cheapness of their sheds would become obvious.