Guttering and Water Butts for your Garden Building
As we move into late Autumn in the UK the leaves are swiftly falling from the trees and more rainy days are in the forecast. It is therefore important to turn our minds to the maintenance tasks that will preserve the longevity of your garden building.
We strongly recommend fitting guttering to all of our garden office buildings to ensure your building is protected for years to come,
Rain water splashback is evident on any log cabin or garden building not fitted with guttering. This is illustrated in the following image.
Although dry at this point it is clear rainwater has been hitting the ground and bouncing back up onto the walls. Prolonged exposure to this level of water may lead to water ingress or potential damage to the timber. A well painted cabin will offer a high degree of protection but we cannot emphasise how important guttering is to reduce the impact of rainwater. Just as consideration of guttering and drainage is important for your home it is equally important for your garden buildings.
Adding a water butt to collect rainwater not only provides a free source of water for your garden plants during the dry spells but can also store much of the rainwater hitting the roof of your log cabin through the year.
At this time of year it is important to check you gutters to make sure they are clear of debris and flowing as expected. It is also not a bad time to consider completely emptying your water butt to remove any rotting leaves which may block the tap.
It may be necessary to check the gutters a couple of times whilst the leaves are still falling from the trees. Also check the downpipes are flowing as expected.
Downpipe filter
A blocked gutter will lead to rain water spilling over the side and potentially running down the walls or splashing back up from the ground onto the walls of your log cabin.
A scrunched up piece of chicken wire can be used as a filter to avoid larger bits of debris blocking your down pipes or clogging up your water butt. Similarly this filtering technique will reduce the amount of debris potentially blocking a traditional soakaway so it is well worth doing.
Garden Building Roof maintenance
This particular roof has a roof membrane and bitumen roof shingles. Over the years there has been a build up of a fine moss. This will not have a major impact on the roof itself and makes for a rather attractive green roof. Obviously this can be monitored as a big build up of living material will add weight and potentially compromise the tiles but for the time being it is not an issue. Different forms of moss can block gutters as it becomes detached from the roof, during heavy rainfall, so this is another factor to consider when maintaining your gutter system.
This unintentional green roof is gradually spreading as nature takes over but this has no dertimenatal effect on the durability of the roof. It will be monitored and can be brushed off if necessary.
Although EPDM rubber roof systems generally require less maintenance it is worth sweeping away any debris from the roof and checking the rear of the roof is sufficiently glued down and flows into the gutter correctly.
Door adjustments
Timber naturally expands as the humidity and dampness increases in the atmosphere. Doors and windows will start to expand and each log of your log cabin may expand by up to 1mm. If you consider 20 logs stacked one on top of the other there is potential for quite a range of movement.
At this time of year we must turn our thoughts to adjusting windows and doors that may be rubbing as the timber expands.
Hinge covers can be pulled back to reveal adjustment screws.
Removing the covers reveals several ajustment screws which can be adjusted using an Allen key. They offer adjustment left and right, up and down and in and out of the door frame.
All three adjustment screws revealed and ready for adjustment. With older cabin models it may be necessary to lift the doors off their hinges altogether. Then wind the hinge in or out of the door and the bottom half of the hinge in or out of the door frame.
Doors adjusted, gutters cleaned and water butts ready for the winter!
