Over time garden sheds need repair. I would say that a decent garden shed only has 12-16 years before it is in need of replacement or a good over-haul. The exception to this rule are perhaps garden sheds that were originally built like residential structures and treated the same over the years.
If you are in the position where you need to decide between fixing up your old shed, or building or buying a replacement, there are more factors that you have to consider than simply cost. A lot of times your shed size or design may no longer be suitable, in which case you will probably replace it. But in other circumstances, perhaps your shed, although old, is perfect for you and your house, and you will decide that fixing it is your best choice. You'll have to decide what the important factors are for you.
I had to answer these questions for two separate sheds this year - my own tiny falling down pine board lean to shed, and my mothers lovely large cottage style split roof design which had a severe water problem. My mothers shed was actually quite an easy decision. Her shed was quite large, so it would have been quite expensive to replace. Also, it didn't actually look in bad shape, except for the holes in the roof and floor. As it turns out, I got away pretty lucky. I did have to entirely replace both roofs, but thankfully there was vapour barrier between the plywood floor and the joists, so I only needed to put down a new plywood floor. The cost for materials was about $550.
My shed, although much smaller, was so far deteriorated that I almost couldn't imagine a repair job being worth the effort. On top of that, my partner and I had always wanted a bigger workshop sized shed, rather than the lean to tool storage shed that we had. Although we loved the look of lean-to and it suited our current needs, we considered an upgrade. A quick calculation put this idea way out of our current budget range, and I still had the basement workshop. So back to figuring out the pros and cons of a repair or replacement.
Our first step was to price out the cost of a building a replacement. We made a list of all of the material we would need and it came to $550 plus 13% tax. One of us a remembered seeing a really cute shed at 50% off in the same price range. We figured we might as well save the time and buy new if that was at all a possibility. After a bit of searching we learned that we could get a smaller ugly resin shed for $650 plus tax. The idea of buying new was shelved.
So we went back to our original price list, and decided that if we were building a replacement, maybe we could salvage the cute siding of the old one, and totally rebuild everything else. In fact, this ended up cutting our rebuild cost in half, since I saved some of the better studs from the old one as well. So we dismantled the old shed saving the board siding, framed in a new floor, set it up on bricks, built a new frame and roof, and re-sided with the original already antiqued board and batten siding. It turned out perfectly because we still have the character of the old shed we loved, but it is now square and watertight and will probably be with the house for another 10-20 years.
Both of these sheds required some thought as to whether repairing or replacing was the best solution, and in both cases we ended up saving the sheds, and saving money as well. In both these cases the sheds were already perfectly suited for their purposes, and they also had exactly the right character to match the century old homes they belonged to. In our case, repairing was the right solution, even though one was almost falling down, we still decided the pros outweighed the cons. You'll have to figure out what the important factors are in your decision before deciding whether your old shed will stay or be replaced. - 30228
If you are in the position where you need to decide between fixing up your old shed, or building or buying a replacement, there are more factors that you have to consider than simply cost. A lot of times your shed size or design may no longer be suitable, in which case you will probably replace it. But in other circumstances, perhaps your shed, although old, is perfect for you and your house, and you will decide that fixing it is your best choice. You'll have to decide what the important factors are for you.
I had to answer these questions for two separate sheds this year - my own tiny falling down pine board lean to shed, and my mothers lovely large cottage style split roof design which had a severe water problem. My mothers shed was actually quite an easy decision. Her shed was quite large, so it would have been quite expensive to replace. Also, it didn't actually look in bad shape, except for the holes in the roof and floor. As it turns out, I got away pretty lucky. I did have to entirely replace both roofs, but thankfully there was vapour barrier between the plywood floor and the joists, so I only needed to put down a new plywood floor. The cost for materials was about $550.
My shed, although much smaller, was so far deteriorated that I almost couldn't imagine a repair job being worth the effort. On top of that, my partner and I had always wanted a bigger workshop sized shed, rather than the lean to tool storage shed that we had. Although we loved the look of lean-to and it suited our current needs, we considered an upgrade. A quick calculation put this idea way out of our current budget range, and I still had the basement workshop. So back to figuring out the pros and cons of a repair or replacement.
Our first step was to price out the cost of a building a replacement. We made a list of all of the material we would need and it came to $550 plus 13% tax. One of us a remembered seeing a really cute shed at 50% off in the same price range. We figured we might as well save the time and buy new if that was at all a possibility. After a bit of searching we learned that we could get a smaller ugly resin shed for $650 plus tax. The idea of buying new was shelved.
So we went back to our original price list, and decided that if we were building a replacement, maybe we could salvage the cute siding of the old one, and totally rebuild everything else. In fact, this ended up cutting our rebuild cost in half, since I saved some of the better studs from the old one as well. So we dismantled the old shed saving the board siding, framed in a new floor, set it up on bricks, built a new frame and roof, and re-sided with the original already antiqued board and batten siding. It turned out perfectly because we still have the character of the old shed we loved, but it is now square and watertight and will probably be with the house for another 10-20 years.
Both of these sheds required some thought as to whether repairing or replacing was the best solution, and in both cases we ended up saving the sheds, and saving money as well. In both these cases the sheds were already perfectly suited for their purposes, and they also had exactly the right character to match the century old homes they belonged to. In our case, repairing was the right solution, even though one was almost falling down, we still decided the pros outweighed the cons. You'll have to figure out what the important factors are in your decision before deciding whether your old shed will stay or be replaced. - 30228
