There are endless uses for recycled plastic lumber, but here in the BRP shed we think that many of the best-fitting tasks mostly involve wet environments and long-term installations. The kind of jobs where fit-and-forget is the goal. Fishing platforms that will be used by the great-grandchildren of the people who build them, viewpoint benches that will seat generations of walkers… and raised beds that might just be the last raised beds you’ll ever buy.
Simply the best
Without wanting to toot our own horns too loudly, we think that recycled plastic lumber is probably the best-suited material currently available for making most garden structures. Timber is beautiful of course, but rot is an ever-present worry. Most owners of wooden sheds, benches, and particularly raised beds, have to simply accept that they will at some point need to replace their entire installation simply because it will slowly crumble and disappear.
A perfect illustration of this problem was kindly sent to us this week by Chris Fone, who chose British Recycled Plastic to supply the recycled plastic lumber to replace his old timber beds. This was the state of the old beds:
Chris’ timber was in a bit of a sorry state
Chris cannily pulled out only the timbers, leaving the soil in place:
The first bed is in – the second (behind) has been stripped of its old timbers
Chris installing the new walls
The cross-members go in
Chris’ plot is all set for many years to come
Chris used his own bespoke design for his beds – our kits are very easy to install but if you want something very particular then custom-cut lumber like Chris’ is easy to arrange. For those of you interested in the construction, Chris had this to say:
“The raised bed with your recycled plastic items is a ‘special’ to replace an existing attempt at a raised bed. There was paving around the original beds but I relayed these with weed resistant fabric underneath. Each raised bed is 4.2m x 1.8m x 0.3m assembled with 150 x 40 Decking with a combination of 75 x 75 and 38 x 38 posts. The decking is held together with stainless hex coach bolts recessed into the lengths of 75 x 75 posts and stainless screws into the 38 x 38 posts. The 4.2m length consisted of the original 3.15m length decking with a shorter 1.05m attached. Support bracing struts were 38 x 38 posts.”
If all this garden activity has got you thinking about what you might do with some recycled plastic lumber for your growing season, you can find our full price list here and you can reach us on [email protected] or on Freephone 0808 281 2929.
