The most sustainable options for your garden shed
When you are selecting your garden bike shed, you have several different options available to you in terms of material, features and add-ons, design, and more. So it can be difficult to choose the most eco-friendly options.
This article will guide you towards the most eco-friendly choices for your garden shed, how you can design your shed to be completely sustainable, and how you can sustainably source storage options for your shed.
The most sustainable materials for your garden bike shed
The most sustainable construction material for a garden shed or bike shed is wood. Sustainably sourced timber is ideal for garden sheds, as it is robust and built to last.
One way you can add sustainability to your garden shed is through your choice of cladding.
One of the most sustainable timbers for bike sheds is Scottish Larch. This untreated material contains a high level of natural oils that rise to the surface over time to form a natural protective skin over the material.
Hard-wearing cladding such as larch or cedar, which can be left untreated, can make your shed more eco-friendly and offer a great combination of performance and value.
Adding a green roof to your bike shed to increase sustainability
One of the best ways to increase the sustainability of your bike shed is to include a living green roof. This option allows you to have a mini ecosystem on the top of your bike shed, that provides a habitat for the natural wildlife too.
Green roofs are extremely easy to add to your bike shed with Brighton Bike Sheds, simply request it when you order. We offer green roofs as standard on all of our sheds, which is perfect for those with little or no garden or green space.
Find out more about our living green roofs.
How to design your shed to make it more sustainable
With customisation options, you can easily make your bike shed more sustainable. You can choose the most sustainable cladding for your shed, and you can add optional extras for more sustainability, such as log stora or side storage which all protect and maintain their contents for much longer.
You can add green roofs to your bike shed and across all your add-ons too, to make them more sustainable and make your shed more aesthetically pleasing.
With the customisation options available at Brighton Bike Sheds, your bike shed will be a long-lasting, sustainable storage solution.
How we make our sheds more sustainable
Here at Brighton Bike Sheds, we use a variety of methods to ensure our bike sheds are sustainable and long-lasting. We use responsible suppliers that source sustainable materials from within the UK and abroad, from certified forests that replenish stocks, and we also minimise waste where possible by ordering optimal timber lengths.
Our sheds are designed so that they can be used for rainwater harvesting, and we take care of all on-site vegetation, wildlife, and water tables, and we design and install drought-tolerant green roofs on all of our sheds.
Brighton Bike Sheds’ products are also long-lasting and durable. We use the highest-quality materials, cladding and security features to ensure they last for years, making them naturally more sustainable.
Other sustainability tips
As well as the material and green roof options, there are a couple of other ways we recommend to increase the sustainability of your bike shed. These include:
Installing compost and water containers
Installing a guttering system under the eaves of your shed is a relatively simple job. You can then easily direct collected water from it through piping into a water butt rain storage container. You’ll collect what you need to water the garden and plants naturally, meaning no need to run the taps. We fit a gutter and downpipe as standard on all of our products and these can easily be linked up to a new or existing water-butt.
You can increase your gardening self-sufficiency by also installing your own composting container. No more bagged stuff from the shop. Making your own compost from garden and food waste means reducing your reliance on commercial compost and waste industries.
Place your compost bin in the shade of your shed, to shelter it from more extreme weather changes. Composting works best under stable conditions. Both rain storage and compost containers are fairly inexpensive and could save you money in the long run, as well as reduce your carbon footprint.
Using water based treatments
Timber sheds clad in pine will ideally need a wood preserver to protect them from heavy weathering. However, oil-based treatments, which are common for wooden sheds, have a more harmful impact on air quality as they evaporate. They’re also much harder to dissolve and clean up. To treat wooden sheds in a more environmentally conscious way, use water-based treatments.
Affixing bird houses, bird feeders, and bug hotels
Another way to stimulate and protect wildlife with your shed is by creating and affixing shelters or feeders. From seed-dispersing birds to pollinating bees, you can help them thrive even in urban areas.
Garden sheds provide natural sheltering for these animals if you affix simple birdhouses, feeders, or bee hotels. They’re not too expensive to buy ready-made or can be a fun DIY project with plenty of tutorials online to help you. Not only do these refuges protect wildlife, but they can make for an attractive, homely shed feature.
Shop sustainable bike sheds and more from Brighton Bike Sheds
Here at Brighton Bike Sheds, we offer numerous options to make your shed more sustainable. From our materials to our green roofs, we work with sustainability at the forefront of our designs. Find out more about our sustainability efforts, or order your sustainable bike shed today.