Introduction
If you’ve never bought a shed before, you might be wondering how we get a shed from our lot to your home. If that’s the case, keep reading to find out more.
Pre-purchase conversation
Before you purchase a shed, we’ll ask about your site. We will find out how much space you have for us to maneuver the shed and what your property and adjacent road are like. This information is helpful as we make plans for delivery, and it points out potential problem areas.
We deliver sheds to all of Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore at no charge. Though road regulations require some of our wider sheds to have escort cars, we do not pass this cost on to you. If you live outside this area, we can give you delivery costs upon request.
At this point, we also want to mention the topic of shed permits. Each county has different requirements, but most have a minimum threshold for a permit (in other words, you don’t need a permit for sheds under a certain size).
We like to point out these permit details at the beginning of the process so you will have time to ensure everything is in place before delivery. We’re happy to answer any questions that we can, and if you find that you will need a set of drawings, we will be more than happy to provide them.
Site prep
For long-term durability, your shed should be set on a foundation. We strongly recommend a gravel bed that’s at least 4” thick. You can do these preparations yourself, or we’ll recommend someone who can do it for you.
One of the easiest ways to lay this bed is to build a frame of 4×4 or 4×6 landscape timbers and then fill it with stone. By creating and leveling this area, adding and leveling stone becomes a simple matter of filling the “box” and smoothing the surface. We recommend that you install landscape fabric under the stone. This helps the stone not to settle into the soil and helps to keep weeds down.
If you’re wondering how large to make this area, the general guide is to make it two feet wider and longer than your shed. This will allow for one foot of stone on all sides of the shed once it is set.
Along with preparing your site, you must think about clearances. These clearances include both vertical and horizontal clearances. Consider the easiest path for the shed to take from the road to your site. Will we have 13’ of unobstructed vertical space? This includes wires, tree branches, roof overhangs, and anything else that could be a barrier.
As with the shed foundation, when speaking of horizontal clearances, we also encourage you to clear a passage that is two feet wider than your shed. Tree branches, porch walls, fence posts—all of these could be a problem.
Speaking of fence posts—we’ve delivered many sheds over the years, and in almost all cases, homeowners will take out a fence post or two and remove the fence in that area. This may be inconvenient, but the alternative is to site-build the shed, and this will increase the costs.
Scheduling delivery
When people ask about a delivery window, we tell them that if they buy an in-stock shed, we can usually have it to them within a week. If that’s not possible, it will be in the second week.
If you opt for any customizations, you can expect delivery in about 4 weeks. If our season is busy, that might stretch to 6 weeks, but we do our best to make delivery as soon as possible.
On a related note, sometimes people wonder what happens if their shed is ready before they are ready to receive it. If that’s the case, there’s no need to worry. We will simply hold the shed on our lot until you are ready.
On the road
Once it is time to get the shed on the road, we will load it onto our special shed-hauling trailer. With our super-duty pickup and this trailer, we can deliver sheds up to 14×30. We always check that the shed is secured to the trailer and are careful as we haul it down the road.
At your property
At your property, we will transfer the shed to your foundation. For larger sheds, this may mean driving our truck next to the pad and using the tilt feature on our trailer to set the shed gently in place.
Our trailer has a special axle that rotates. This allows us to park at 90 degrees to your pad and then “drive” the trailer sideways while keeping the truck in position. This is very helpful for accurately placing sheds into tight spaces.
Wherever possible, instead of driving to your pad, we will unload on the road and use our shed mule to position the shed. A mule is a special machine designed for moving sheds. It’s about the size of a small skid steer (“Bobcat”) and leaves virtually no sign of its presence.
Follow-up
Once your shed is in place, we’ll pack up and be on our way. But that doesn’t mean we’ll forget you. Once you start using your shed, please let us know if you notice anything amiss. Very rarely, we may run into something like a defective window or a loose shingle.
We want to know about these issues as soon as you do. We want to resolve them immediately. We want everyone to be satisfied with their purchase. That’s one reason we include a 10-year warranty on what we sell.
Final thoughts
We hope that by now, you have a good idea of what a shed delivery is like. If this article doesn’t answer all of your questions, please call us. We want your purchase and delivery to be as smooth as possible.