Replacing the garden shed is something most people would prefer to avoid – it takes time, money, and means you need to clear everything out. However, it’s important to check on your shed to make sure that it’s still doing its job of keeping its contents safe, clean, and dry. If you see any of these signs, it’s important to change your shed as soon as possible to avoid damaging or even completely losing the contents.
The Shed is Leaning
One of the biggest signs that you need to change your shed is the dreaded ‘lean’- this isn’t just irritating and untidy to look at, it’s unsafe (especially if you have children or pets in the household). It also means that moisture is more likely to find its way through the gaps and damage the contents, effectively meaning that you may as well have left them outside!
It has an Infestation
As time goes on, especially without proper maintenance, wood can deteriorate and allow rats, mice, and insects into your shed. This can cost you a lot in clean up and extermination fees due to the animals chewing on your items and soiling the inside of the shed. Realistically, it’s often easier to just get rid of the shed entirely rather than trying to replace each item on damaged wood and the flooring. It also gets rid of the animal scent completely, which helps avoid another encounter.
You Can Smell Moisture
If your shed has the dreaded damp and musty smell when you open the door, you’ll think twice about putting anything delicate or valuable in there (which makes you question why you have a shed at all…). Damp will affect the wood and simply means that your shed will deteriorate at a faster rate – once you already smell it, it’s usually quite extreme and will require entire pieces of the shed to be replaced (or you can just change the shed entirely).
The Wood is Multi-Coloured
If you have been maintaining your shed each year, it’s unlikely that you’ll suffer this problem but if you can see that the wood is clearly different colours, with dark and light patches, it’s a sign that the wood has deteriorated. Dark patches typically mean damp or even rot, while light patches are usually just sun damage which is not as severe.