Non-motoring > Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? Miscellaneous
Thread Author: zippy Replies: 17
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 02:10 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - zippy
I've not had luck with sheds. They've all been wood. They don't seem to last, even with maintenance.

I have a path at the side of the house with a 6ft wide flowerbed that just gets neglected. I want to put a shed there. The shed can't be wider than 6ft.

Has anyone had any experience of plastic or metal sheds and any tips that they would like to share?

The there are tiered sections so the maximum length is about 18ft. There are 15ft and 17ft sheds but they are 8ft wide - which would eat in to the path - so can't do that. 6ft sheds tend to be either 6ft or 8ft long so I suppose I could have two next to each other - unless anyone knows of a manufacturers of long and thin plastic or metal sheds.

Some of the sheds look feature-less or just solid panels of plastic or metal. Ideally one with a little style with windows would be nice.

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New Thu 22 Aug 24 08:52 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - CGNorwich
I think wooden sheds will always look best. Where people go wrong is they don’t put them on a decent base. I favour a poured concrete slab but paving slabs are OK as long as they are properly laid and level. Don’t put the shed directly on the base but use tanalised 4 inch posts laid horizontally to leave an airspace under the shed. My shed is over 30 years old and still in good condition. I have replaced the roofing felt twice.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Thu 22 Aug 24 at 08:53
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 09:02 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - legacylad
As CGN
My mum had an odd space between the side of her house and fence. Small company I know made wooden sheds, and rabbit hutches, kennels etc so I had one custom made. 5 sided, two Perspex windows.
Came in 7 sections, laid on level concrete slabs, air gap underneath, treated with spirit based wood preserver every 3 years. I bolted it together with a friend. Could easily be unbolted.
Still original roofing felt after 15 years.
And originally I gave it two coats of wood preserver on the interior. Bit OTT but easier to do when empty !
Worth paying the extra for a sectional custom built.
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 09:08 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - sherlock47
30 years ago, during my house extension building phase, I had the base dug and slab poured. Approx 12 x 6'. 3 courses of brickwork and 4x2 frame with pitched roof. Used a set of redundant double glaze windows, feather edge shiplap cladding, repurposed tiles and door, and the the overall cost was was little more than a preassembled wooden 'kit' of dubious quality. Been treated/painted twice in the in the intervening period and still solid and water proof.

The only mistake that I made was to not felt the roof. Waterproof, but plants love to to grow in.

Could have become a mancave if I didn't have a large garage.
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 10:11 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - Fullchat
You can get bespoke sized sheds made to measure.
As mentioned above the shed should be sat on tanilised fencing posts with some DPC plastic laid on top. Better still concrete posts.
If you live in a leafy suburb maybe some mesh around the edges to stop a build up of detritus and wildlife underneath.
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 12:44 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - zippy
>> If you live in a leafy suburb maybe some mesh around the edges to stop
>> a build up of detritus and wildlife

Good idea


I am currently sitting in my home office, looking out over my TPO protected wood and thinking there must be about 5 tonnes of leaves about to drop this autumn! :-/
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 10:47 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - Biggles
We have a plain aluminium shed from Biohort which is now more than 10 years old and looks the same as when I put it up. There are various models on sale. Windows are available as an optional extra as a "matching accessory".
I find them a bit mode stylish than your average wooden shed.
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 11:52 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - Falkirk Bairn
Son bought a Costco sourced Plastic Shed - not cheap but clunk click it was up in no time. Weatherproof, unlike the wooden shed.

1st Winter - really strong winds - the roof blew off - destroyed the Sky Dish on the wall, took down the rainwater pipe next it. The rest of the shed was all over the garage.

He collected all the bits thinking he could re-assemble it.
No chance all the clips were broken. £750 down the pan and the problem of getting it to recycling centre - van hire.
Replacement is a small wooden shed.
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 12:31 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - Terry
We recently had a new small shed (10x6). The above advice about the base is very good sense.

Generally you get what you pay for.

Cheap plastic sheds are little different in material and design to Portaloo. Loos are actually constructed more robustly to contain the contents and the abuse of thousands of users.

Aluminium also needs to be tethered down properly to avoid moving in high winds. An expensive option (the shed may cost more than the assorted gardening contents) but will probably last.

My experience with wood is generally positive. I would avoid cheap sheds and go for those with decent frame sizes (50x30mm +), and T&G or shiplap cladding ideally at least 16mm thick.

Many companies will build standard sizes with door and window openings customer specified.

Ours was delivered on the back of a truck in 7 panels (roofx2, sides, floor). Total erection time was approx 90 mins add on cost was small. Only other advice is to ensure decent quality roof covering - cheap materials will fail in a couple of years!
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 14:37 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - Robin O'Reliant
>> Son bought a Costco sourced Plastic Shed - not cheap but clunk click it was
>> up in no time. Weatherproof, unlike the wooden shed.
>>
>> 1st Winter - really strong winds - the roof blew off - destroyed the Sky
>> Dish on the wall, took down the rainwater pipe next it. The rest of the
>> shed was all over the garage.
>>
>>


I paid over a hundred for one of those large plastic storage bins about ten years ago. The plastic doesn't like the constantly changing temperature and warps and cracks over the years. it was leaking within five years and virtually unusable when we got rid last year, the top wouldn't close at all and the front doors only with difficulty.

The guy next door bought a galvanised steel shed around the same time and it is still as good as new.
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 16:30 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - smokie
Through an agent at the local garden centre we got a Pent shed from these people www.ajsectional.com/sheds/ a few years back.

Floor was upgraded FoC for some reason.

It was delivered and assembled in less than an hour as I recall. As mentioned above installation wasn't much extra.

Seems they do some pretty long 6' wide sheds. www.ajsectional.com/base-sizes/


LATE EDIT: Forget when posting that Zippy wasn't after wood!!
Last edited by: smokie on Sun 25 Aug 24 at 13:56
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New Thu 22 Aug 24 19:52 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - Biggles
Sorry, not aluminium but plated steel. The raised beds are ally.
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New Sun 25 Aug 24 11:28 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - zippy
>>Biohort

Nice, just had a look at their site.

They look really nice, unfortunately, the one for our footprint is the ugly duckling - we would be left with a plain wall and sloping pent roof running parralllell to our property line with the door on the short side. I would want the one pent roof sloping front to back, and the door at the front, which they don't do. :-(
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New Tue 27 Aug 24 14:12 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - Dave_
I designed and built a 14' x 8' wooden shed in 2021, to replace two 8' x 6' wooden sheds that were here when we moved in. One small shed was on a poured concrete base, the other was not, so we laid out slabs to take the new shed half on the base and half on the slabs.

This summer I had to renew the half of the shed floor that's over the slabs, after I put my foot through a rotten bit. This time I've put a polythene sheet in *facepalm*. I've also put a 32mm hole in each floor joist every foot or so, to hopefully aid ventilation. I've added mesh over the external holes to keep rodents out.

The frame itself is tremendously over-engineered, made out of 6" x 2" timbers. I reckon it would support the weight of another shed on the roof. I've already worked out that at some point in the future I'll need to borrow a HIAB lorry to lift the whole thing off the deck so I can slide a proper DPC layer underneath.
Last edited by: Dave_ on Tue 27 Aug 24 at 14:13
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New Sat 31 Aug 24 12:45 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - zippy
More shed chaos :-D

Two different contractors (digging out the old flower bed and concreting it over) have said, whilst the gap is about 7 ft between the wall and the path, a 6 ft shed was on the cards.

However, after independently inspecting, both are now saying, because of the way the foundations of the wall work and need to access the wall if there are any problems in the future, the maximum depth can be 5ft.

Disappointed and I'm not sure a 5ft shed is what I want. I a workshop / garden tool storage / bike storage etc.

May have to cancel the project.
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New Sat 31 Aug 24 13:26 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - Fullchat
Really!!??
Surely if and when access to the wall is really required you could dismantle the shed/ Its not that hard.For me a metre would be adequate.
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New Sat 31 Aug 24 13:59 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - zippy
>>Really?...

Yes, but I am not convinced that I fully understand why.

Both talked about "French drains", rain soakaway etc. etc.

Not sure that I understand really (I am not at all practical).
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New Fri 4 Oct 24 11:39 
 Sheds, plastic, metal or wood? - zippy
A job I wish I had never started...

So I cleared out the old, rotten wooden shed, which is between next door's wall and the path that runs along the side of our house. Water was running down the wall to the shed and had nowhere to go - hence a rotten shed.

The path rises by 2 sets of steps and the shed is just in front / to the side of the bottom steps.

It has revealed that the bodger who had this house before us removed a load of earth to make room for the shed - INCLUDING under the footings of the wall. The footings are flying about 2/3rd of a meter above the ground.

The wall supports next door's path at the side of their house which is about 1.5 meters above our path - but probably 2.5 / 3 meters at this lowest point.

You can see where the strip of concrete is bending and where some blocks in the wall have taken on a curved line in the horizontal plane.

This needs rectifying and of course the surveyor didn't look at it because it's not our wall. Grrrrr.
Last edited by: zippy on Fri 4 Oct 24 at 11:41
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