Congratulations! You’ve just built a storage shed and saved a ton of money at the same time.
Now you need to protect your investment for the long term.
Paint:
The first thing you need to do is to paint your new shed. Paint serves 2 functions. The first is to make your shed look good. The second and most important is to protect your shed. Paint is a barrier against the elements that keeps water and the sun from damaging the wood. It is a protective coating.
Caulking covers the large gaps that paint can’t cover. Then you paint the caulk to protect it too.
So give your new shed 2 coats of the best paint you can find. The better the paint the longer it will last which means time and money saved on repainting in the years ahead.
A good quality paint will last 5 to 10 years. Keep a close eye on it as it gets older and re caulk and re paint when necessary.
Termites:
Whether done intentionally or accidentally, when termites find a path into the un treated wood of your shed they will make themselves at home and do damage to the wood long before you ever notice their presence.
Protect your shed from termites by keeping any dead plants away from your shed. Termites will eat the dead plants and find their way into the shed. Also avoid leaning untreated wood against the outside of your shed for the same reason. If you decide you need a ramp, then make it from pressure treated wood. I will not rot and is resistant to termites.
Loose fasteners:
Your shed is put together with nails, screws and carriage bolts. But over time the wood these fasteners are installed into will relax and the fasteners will loosen up.
After your shed is 3 to 6 months old, walk around it with a hammer and inspect for nails heads that are popping up. This mostly happens in the floor. Just pound them back in. If it happens on the outside, re touch the paint around the area that the nail head broke through.
If the fasteners holding your door come lose, your door will start sagging. So be pro active here and keep the screws or bolts tight so your door stays in proper align.
Roof:
Replace any loose or missing shingles immediately. Check the inside of your shed regularly for stains that indicate water damage. If you find some stains inside your shed, that is a sign that your roof has a leak.
Once you have found the leak, how you repair it will depend on where it’s located. Usually replacing any missing shingles and the proper application of a good quality caulk or roof coating will do the job.
Ground Settling:
After awhile you might notice your door latch doesn’t line up properly and you have to struggle to close the door. Your first thought is that the door is sagging. But in fact the shed has settled and is throwing the door out of align.
If and when this happens then jack up one corner of the shed until the door comes back in line and re block your shed. You might have to do this once or twice over time until the shed is completely settled.