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Does your arbour or your pergola need repainting? Do not postpone the task and get on with it as soon as possible.

It is not pleasant when your shed falls into ruins slowly but surely. And a dilapidated shed full of clutter looks weird to your neighbours…

There is nothing like having a good quality garden construction on your property, which can survive winter as well as strong winds without problems. Additionally, these constructions protect materials, tools or garden chairs, which are waiting for warm days. Every garden construction deserves enough attention from its owner – the care is worth it in her long run.

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Good Quality Roof

As with conventional buildings, a barn or a garden shed needs a good and high quality roof. In the moment you find out that rainwater is leaking inside, do not wait and check the roof as soon as possible. It is recommended to examine other places where water could be leaking into the construction, too. Even if the roof is ok, take care of painting it with good paint that will protect the roof against the weather.

Like the roof, the structure of the building is important, too. The individual parts of the structure should be well conserved to withstand invasions of insects, rodents as well as weather changes. If you find out that one of the supporting beams is damaged, it is better to replace now than to see your shed collapsed and tools damaged in winter.

The roof includes gutters and downspouts, as well. Each garden building should have the roof sloped to one side, where water should be drained to the ground. It is not good, if the building gets wet after each rain, neither if the roof is sloped to one point, from which water keeps flowing down to the foundations. The experienced homeowners solve this issue by standing a barrel to the edge of the roof to catch the water; they use it later for flowers and plants in the garden.

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Coating Is A Must

Most garden buildings are made of wood (timber) with roofs of sheet metal or other roof covering. The walls made of boards must be conserved very well. This can be done by e.g. high quality paint or by old motor oil. The soaked timber survives weather fluctuations and you can be sure, that either mice or insects (including woodworms) do not like it. If the surroundings of the building are formed by a clay surface, it is far better to coat the lower parts of the building with several layers of paint.

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Start From The Floor

The next important part of a garden construction is the floor. It should be made of concrete and the lower part of the structure should be recessed. This will reduce possibility of being washed away during a flood. Whenever you discover that part of the floor is broken, just knock the floor around it out with hammer and fill the hole with new concrete. Cracks in concrete can be sealed with silicone. If you do not do so, frost and moisture would tear the whole floor in winter.

Outdoor constructions, such as garden arbours or pergolas, need only regular painting. Do not save on a quality paint or varnish, as you can prevent bark beetles and other pests from destroying it.

Greenhouses (made either of glass or plastic foil) should be painted once a year. Broken windows or torn foil should be replaced to avoid unnecessary loss of light.

Once in a while, it is advisable to replace the wooden panelling, which is perishable easily due to moisture. Fungi and mould get from it down into the soil and they consume the quality nutrients meant for vegetables or flowers. If the soil is tired and exhausted, good fertilizing is necessary, and if it does not work, the whole soil must be replaced. On this occasion, it is recommended to do the overall repair or reconstruction of the greenhouse.

Although plastic can resist weather, it may not always look nice. Wood and metal acquire a patina during the time, so they need careful treatment. What kind of garden furniture should you choose then?

Many people keep their weekend cottages or they do the gardening. However in order the garden was a nice place to relax and meet friends, it is necessary to pay attention to the garden furniture.

After all, every garden needs some outdoor furniture, so that you could sit under a blossoming apple tree and read a book or even better, under a tree on which sweet smelling apples ripen.

However, there are differences among garden furniture.

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Plastic, Iron Or Wood

When getting your garden furniture, you always have to consider, how often you are going to rest in your garden. You have to ask yourself, how often visitors come to you or whether a member of your family is not overweight. It sounds ridiculous, but many cases of injuries have been registered after bursting of plastic chairs. Believe it or not, fracture of coccyx, or even a leg of a plastic chair stuck in your body is nothing pleasant. This does not mean that plastic garden furniture does not have a use. It is very popular, but not in families where people are rather big.

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Advantages Of Plastic Furniture

The advantage of plastic furniture is definitely their purchase price. Another plus is that there are several colours and manufacturers on the market, so the range is nearly endless. In case of damage of a piece, you can replace it with the same type easily, quickly and affordably. When your plastic garden furniture gets wet, you just wipe it with cloth. On a plastic table, scratches are not as visible as on wood. Additionally, plastic tables usually have a hole in the middle to insert a parasol. Seniors appreciate the weight of a set of plastic furniture, which is half compared to wood furniture.

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Metal Or Plastic?

The disadvantages of plastic furniture include a low pressure resistance. Or have you ever tried to swing on a plastic chair? Another disadvantage is that plastic furniture can often be knocked over by strong wind or taken away by heavy rains.

Iron garden furniture is really rare nowadays. It requires regular maintenance and the cost is quite high. It will not be taken away by wind, but rather by burglars. The downside is that it accepts the ambient temperature, and it is nothing pleasant to sit either on a cold chair in cold weather, or on hot iron in summer.

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Wooden Furniture Is The Best

Wood furniture is clearly the most suitable for garden use. Its price is somewhere in the middle and depends on the type of the wood. The best quality garden furniture is made of teak wood. It became  a leader in world rankings and it won favour of private sector as well as public facilities (hotels, boarding houses), because it can handle extreme load. Although prices of teak furniture are higher than those of other high quality outdoor furniture, the owner will save on their maintenance later; both pests and mould avoid the solid and hard wood. It is almost unreal to break a teak chair. The teak furniture is resistant to bright sun, rain and snow and its maintenance is easy.

“Many people purchase a smokehouse, because it gives them a taste of what the generation of our grandfathers and grandmothers could eat,” an expert on fireplaces says. He is aware that majority of the population has never had the opportunity to taste the “real” sausage. It even happens that they refuse some classic products because their taste buds have become so distorted that they take the products from bought in the supermarket as the norm.

 

How Much Meat You Will Smoke In It

There are a lot of types of the smokehouses on the market: the lightweight portable ones, the smokehouses combined with a garden fireplace, the cask smokehouses or the electric smokehouses. The prevailing materials are brick, metal and wood.

The key factor in your decision should be a coherent idea of what and in what quantities you are going smoke in the smokehouse.

“Your decision should be based on the space available and you should choose the location for the smokehouse, so that it matched the complex and did restrict neither you, nor your neighbours,” he advises. Thus the smokehouse, in addition to the function, also becomes an appropriate element of the exterior.

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How Does The Smokehouse Work

Every smokehouse is unique, which depends on the ideas of the person who built it, as well as on the space available. However, in their principle, they work in a similar way.

The scheme of a home smokehouse can be divided into four parts: it consists of a fireplace, a flue, a smoke box and a chimney. For the proper function of the smokehouse, it is essential to observe the following rules, which must be taken into account when you consider the location of the smokehouse.

Fireplace must be placed lower than the smoke box and must be smaller than box. Inside, there is a grate with an ash pan underneath it, from which the collected ash must be removed.

Flue: its inclination is given by the height difference between the fireplace and the smoke box as it interconnects these two parts; it is usually 2-4 m long.

The Smoke Box: its size should correspond to the intended amounts of the sausages or meat; the smokehouse is a very complex device and can be enhanced with many tricks; it can be built as a part of the kitchen garden, too.

 

How To Use The Smokehouse

Smoking With The Cold Smoke: it is performed on the dry sausages and salamis; you put them in the smokehouse heated to 40 ° C, until they get dry and then reduce the temperature to 20 ° C. They should be exposed to the smoke for a day minimally, for 2-3 days better yet.

Smoking With The Warm Smoke: it is the most common in our homes: the raw meat is heated in warm water of about 60 ° C and then hung in the smokehouse, which has been preheated to the same temperature; the meat remains in the smoke for about 6 hours. These products are not as durable as the ones smoked with the cold smoke, they are however suitable for the direct consumption and the smoking time itself is quite short.

Smoking With The Hot Smoke: it is not suitable for the sausages, as their casing would crack. Let the meat get soused for 3 hours minimally and get it drained. Then put it into the smokehouse preheated to about 60 ° C and increase the temperature gradually up to 90-100 ° C. The overall smoking time is 1 – 1.5 hours. While smoking the meat, it is necessary to add wet sawdust to the fire, as the wood itself does not produce enough smoke.

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The Cost

The small portable smokehouses are the cheapest. The more expensive are the middle class portable smokehouses, which can hold up to 12 kg of meat, and are intended for all kinds of smoking. The smokehouses with the insulation, which are designed to operate all year round, are the most expensive ones.

The smokehouse can become a part of a garden kitchen and can be a supplement to the most used grill. In this case, it is recommended to get an architect who is experienced in planning the garden fireplaces and garden kitchens. And if you are interested in building it yourself, there is a specialized technical literature available for you.

An outdoor kitchen has several advantages: it embellishes your garden in an original way, it makes your barbecues and later cleanings easier and it provide you with a cosy space for the evenings. You can do your office work there so that it is more pleasant.

Many people enjoy spending the evenings doing a barbecue in the hot season. They usually use grills of various designs and a wide range of prices. However, you can also build a stylish outdoor kitchen in your garden.

“The number of orders to the garden kitchens is growing. The people want to be different from their neighbours and want to remodel their gardens in a tasteful way,” a fireplace specialist says.

It is natural, that the life of the family moves to the outdoor kitchens over the summer. And it is not only a romantic matter, as most of us are too busy for it. It is nice to open your laptop there and do your work in the open air.

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  1. Orient The Layout According To The Sun

The outdoor kitchen is mostly made up by a fixed fireplace and a worktop. It can be adjacent to the house or it can be free-standing under a pergola.

“When designing the outdoor kitchen, it is good to know the route of the sun during the day. The kitchen should be positioned in a way so that it did not disturb the neighbours or the kids sleeping inside the house, and it should also provide shade during the hot summer days. You need to consider your needs and imagine the future usage. It is always good to hear more opinions which help you reach the correct layout of the garden kitchen,” the expert adds.

 

  1. Pay Attention To The Equipment

You can have both a fireplace and a smokehouse in your garden kitchen. Many customers are interested in connecting the fireplace with the classic kitchen cabinets, which create a spacious surface. The grilling “connoisseurs” can have two furnaces built: the classic one for the solid fuels and the secondary gas one with lava stones used to prepare fish.

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  1. The Kitchen Appliances

The outdoor fireplace´s furnace is typically at the height of a kitchen worktop. The fireplace is equipped with an adjustable, removable grate or with a grill insert.

It can also be equipped with an integrated or inserted motor used for grilling of a piglet, a whole ham and other delicacies. A garden kitchen can serve in the same way as an indoor one. You can use a blender, an electric kettle and other handy appliances there.

 

  1. Keep The Networks In Mind

When planning your garden kitchen, it is necessary to realize, that it will require a foundation for the built parts as well as the electricity and water connections.

The materials used for the building are not deciding essentially, but you have to consider the weather conditions when doing the design. That is why it is advisable to consult a specialist, or at least someone who already has some experiences with building of an outdoor kitchen, maybe your neighbour.

 

Have you decided to get a garden fireplace? When choosing the type (or the contractor) of a garden fireplace, a significant factor is its size.

For such a decision, it is necessary to make sure, how much space you have defined for the fireplace, how many people you would like to invite to your barbecues and ultimately, how much are you willing to invest in your fireplace. Consideration must also be taken for the overall complexity and the style of your garden or your patio.

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Garden Fireplaces Can Be Divided Into Several Categories According To Their Sizes

You can get a really small and inexpensive prefabricated fireplace with the furnace width from about 35 cm, which is lightweight and has economical dimensions. This fireplace will certainly be appreciated by those who need to install a grilling fireplace quickly without spending too much and who will do the grilling only with their family and/or a few friends. You can expect neither a superior durability, nor an aesthetic appeal from such a product, as the practicality prevails to the effect. The practicality means, in this case, the effectiveness at basic grilling on the grate without the possibility of using further accessories.

The next category is the modular garden fireplaces, from medium to larger sized, with the furnace width of approx. 50 cm and the overall dimensions you have to take account of in your garden. The breadth of these fireplaces starts at about 1 m and together with additional tables, or in the case of corner sets, it easily occupies the space 2 m wide (2×2 at the corner). With such a fireplace, it is possible, while maintaining a reasonable price, to host a larger group of people without worrying about the lack of space on the grill grate.

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These garden fireplaces will definitely not be a disgrace in your garden, on the contrary, they often become an impressive supplement or even a dominant of the garden seating. Even with all this functions, the outdoor fireplaces are usually dismantable, so they can be dismantled relatively easily, when the conditions change, and you can reassemble them elsewhere. The individual parts can be carried by two people, so you do not need any special equipment, even though the total weight of the assembled fireplace often exceeds 500 kg.

The concrete, modular and the medium sized fireplaces can be recommended to the widest group of users and each of them can find his or her preferred combination. The garden fireplaces of this category usually have a wide range of accessories, a variety of surfaces and types of the roofs, from concrete to steel ones (which are used for the final fine smoking of food).

The last size category of the garden fireplaces can be called the outdoor fireplaces built according to individual projects. This kind of a fireplace is an appropriate solution in the case of a large restricted area and sufficient financial resources, when providing services to a large group of people and when  the standards of comfort are high. This fireplace is often an integrated part of the whole garden kitchen with a refrigerator, a dishwasher, a sink and other necessary amenities. These garden sets and fireplaces are built on a solid foundation and they require an expert design and implementation. The consequent change of dispositions is problematic, if not impossible. The price of these garden fireplaces/outdoor kitchens “made to measure” is the highest.

To sum up, a reasonable choice of a garden fireplace needs to be a subject (among other aspects, e.g. the use value, the price, the aesthetic balance, the ease of getting spare parts or the range of the accessories) to the comparison of the spatial intensity mentioned above.

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