How To Care For Your Timber Gate
Installing a strong and attractive wooden gate is essential for a secure home and easy access to your front or rear garden. But like all timber products, it’s important to maintain and care for your gate to ensure it will last you years and look perfect all year round. In this blog, we will be exploring timber treatments and gate care for different gate types and giving you top tips on how to effectively care for your gate.
Use Wood Oil – The Stain and Oil Method
To produce high-quality gates, timber is the natural product that is used, and over time it will react with weather conditions and you may see warping and shrinkage on your gate. Whilst all gates sold at Lawsons are treated, it’s always advisable to spend a small amount of time caring and maintaining your gate could help it survive the UK’s extreme weather and keep it looking pristine. A key benefit of using a wood stain/oil is that it helps control the evaporation/absorption of the moisture content of the gate and that it is simple to apply.
To preserve your gate, we recommend using a wood oil for treatment. Our Barrettine wood protector is a wood sealer for rough, sawn or smooth timber. It is a modern UV wood oil which contains water repellent resins and a biocide film wood preserver to prevent the surface growth of mould/algae and together this helps reduce decay, swelling, twisting of wood. It has a good UV fade resistance to help protect your gate from UV damage and preserve its original colour. You will find a variety of wood stains colours at Lawsons to match your gate’s natural timber colour.
In short, the wood oil will ‘fill’ any microscopic holes apparent in the gate and prevents deterioration. Small splints are quite common in woods, but with the application of wood oil it can greatly reduce the appearance of this and the appearance of warping.
Treatment for Softwood Gates
Softwood gates are carefully created using the best selected slow grown kiln dried timber and include weather tolerant properties. The softwood gates are treated twice with preservatives before they are sold to you, so if you choose a softwood gate from Lawsons, you can always trust the gate quality. Whilst, our gates come pre-treated, we always recommend that you still treat your softwood gates (including cut outs and the drill holes) with wood oil going forwards to prevent moisture from entering the timber, and thus resulting warping and swelling.
Pressure treated softwood gates:
If you purchase a gate, which is softwood and pressure treated to protect against rot and insect attacks, you will need to apply wood oil to avoid weathering and UV damage. UV rays also limit the effectiveness of pressure treated gates.
Treatment for Hardwood Gates
Opting for a gate made from hardwood timber is known to be much easier to care and maintain for. The characterises of hardwood timber is that it will look after itself and you won’t need to protect it in comparison to softwood timber.
However, over time the hardwood gate may start to discolour due to weathering, and to avoid this and preserve its natural colour, you should use a wood oil.
General Treatment Tips
- We do not advise painting your gates for maintenance purposes
- Always apply preservative on all the gate including cuts outs and drilled areas
- Use the UV wood oil before you install your gate
- Test your chosen preservative colour before applying directly to the gate
- Don’t avoid treating the bottom of your gate – it’s essential all the timber is treated
- Opt for a natural flat brush when treating
