Protecting your garden furniture over the winter months is crucial if you hope to maximise the lifespan of your investment and ensure your garden furniture can be used for many years to come. Garden furniture is an important feature in terms of how much you can enjoy your outdoor space, and ideally you want many years’ service and for the garden furniture to look great and perform great each time you uncover it after a long, harsh winter.
With the outdoor furniture covers supplied by Bags & Covers you are able to fully protect your items such as tables, chairs, benches and sofas to ensure they look and feel great long term, but this is only possible if you choose the right size of outdoor furniture cover. So here’s what you need to consider.
Why is size important with a garden furniture cover?
It goes without saying that the more of your garden furniture you can cover up, the more protected it will be. However, you need to provide sufficient room for air to circulate underneath the cover, otherwise too much condensation will form. Condensation is caused by changes in temperature, and so it is unavoidable, however you can reduce its effects if air can breathe underneath the cover. On the flipside, a cover that is too big will lead to water pools forming or excess material being caught by high winds, so measuring a cover that is too small or too big can cause problems either way.
Common mistakes to avoid when measuring for a garden furniture cover
Mistakes that are often made can include:
- Internal dimensions – The dimensions offered by a manufacturer will usually be the internal dimensions of the cover, so you need to allow a few millimetres to then fit the extensions of your furniture, and also allow air to circulate.
- Ground contact – Ideally you don’t want the cover to touch the ground. This allows air to circulate underneath the cover, but also prevents damage from damp or dirt over time. Covers from Bags & Covers are supplied with eyelets and draw cords around the base to gather the material off the ground and prevent contact.
- Damaged seams – Covers that are too small can lead to seams overstretching. Bags & Covers supply high quality covers with heat-sealed seams to prevent water penetration, but if these seams are over-stretched it can damage the seam over time and lead to water ingress. The same can happen if you try to stack garden furniture items and hence create an irregular shape that the cover is not designed for.
- Water pooling – Over-sized covers can lead to areas where water gathers and pools on the surface, potentially damaging the cover and the furniture underneath. A correctly sized cover can prevent this, or you could add an item underneath the cover to elevate it and provide a constant run-off, which prevents water pooling.
- Wind damage – Another result of over-sized covers is wind damage. Too much material will very easily be caught by winds, even when they are relatively moderate. This can damage the cover and displace it to expose the furniture.
Step-by-step guide to measuring for a garden furniture cover
Measuring tool – Make sure you have a tape measure that can measure in the unit required. Mostly this will be millimetres.
Find a shape – On the Bags & Covers website there are a number of designs which suit common items of garden furniture. You can find the shape that approximately matches your item and it will advise on how to measure it. This is relatively simple if you have a square table for example, as this will be height, width and depth, but complexity is added when you have a round table, an L-shaped sofa or an irregular item such as a bench and table, or a barbecue or firepit.
Separate the item – As much as possible you want to separate the item into individual sections which can be measured. So a round table has a round top which can be measured using the circumference or diameter, but then you can add the height and width of the stand/legs/support. Equally an L-shaped sofa can be separated into the long section and the shorter section. When you have measured everything, you can match your dimensions against the closest fit on our website.
Add a bit – Don’t forget that the dimensions for the covers on the Bags & Covers website are for internal dimensions. So add some clearance to enable you to fit the cover comfortably over the item, and also to enable air to circulate and to prevent too much condensation forming. At the same time, it is important to have a snug fit with no excess material.
Choose your outdoor furniture cover from our range
Having accurately measured your cover you can select the correct product from our range of outdoor furniture covers, or from our made-to-measure section, so browse our range and order online now.