Purchasing a protective cover for your outdoor furniture is almost as important a decision as buying the furniture in the first place. Today garden furniture can be a significant investment and you need to protect that investment by looking after your garden furniture to maximise its lifespan and get value for money, as well as ensuring you get as much enjoyment out of it as possible. Many people buy covers to protect outdoor furniture with the best intentions, but make costly mistakes with inadequate covers of poor quality, or by overlooking important factors.
So here we have collated the five most common mistakes people make, and have explained why these can be costly and what can be done to avoid them.
- Overlooking measurements
This is slightly different to providing the wrong measurements when ordering a made-to-measure garden furniture cover, which can be an honest mistake, but is more to do with not appreciating how important it is to give accurate measurements. There are so many different types, sizes and styles of garden furniture that it can be hard to find a standard size to suit. That’s why our made-to-measure service is so popular. But you need to supply us with the correct measurements. If not this can lead to sections of your garden furniture not being protected properly and getting damaged over winter. Or if the cover is too large, this can result in excess cover material which can get caught in high winds and can trail in ground water. This can be noisy overnight, can damage the cover and can also expose parts of the furniture you are trying to protect.
- Not considering weather conditions
Buying an inferior garden furniture cover that is not weatherproof is a classic mistake, particularly if the furniture is wood and will deteriorate badly if exposed to too much frost and moisture over the winter. Make sure you know what your furniture is made of and purchase a suitable cover which protects it from the likely weather conditions it will face. Some outdoor furniture needs to be protected but can still be stored under cover in the garden, but if you need a weatherproof cover that protects against rain and snow, make sure you get one.
- Buying a non-breathable cover
Overnight conditions during winter can produce moisture even when it doesn’t rain. With a non-breathable cover, this will trap moisture and not allow air to circulate properly. This can lead to mould and mildew forming, and can cause rust if the furniture is metal, or start to rot and deteriorate the furniture if it is wooden. Any garden furniture that will be stored outside should be covered by a weatherproof and breathable cover.
- Not thinking about ground conditions
When choosing a garden furniture cover, or when measuring the dimensions of one, a common mistake is to only look at the above-ground sections of the furniture. After all, this is the main body of your investment so it is understandable. But what your garden furniture will be stood on over winter can make a huge difference. Can you only stand the furniture on grass, for example? Grass will be saturated and wet nearly all the way through Autumn and Winter. Is the furniture stood on decking or paving where water pools rather than runs off? This can also damage the footings of garden furniture. Moisture damage tends to rise upwards, so it is important to suitably protect the feet and the body of outdoor furniture while it is stored outside over winter, so make sure you select an appropriate cover or choose suitable dimensions which ensure this.
- Trying to store too much
Many people attempt to stack chairs on top of an accompanying table in order to save space and costs when protecting garden furniture over winter. Indeed, any combination of stacking barbecues, firepits, sofas and benches together has been attempted, resulting in awkward irregular shapes, instability issues, and covers being damaged when items fall over in high winds. Don’t try to store too much under one cover, ultimately, a purpose-made cover will always protect an item better than trying to improvise, and this will save costs in having to buy new garden furniture that hasn’t been properly protected.
Check out our full range of covers for garden furniture and order online today, and if you can’t find the size or style you need, contact our team or check out our made-to-measure service.