UK Log Cabins Info Blog Archives -

18 October 2025 By uklogcabins

uPVC fascia boards

uPVC fascia boards can transform one of the most vulnerable parts of garden buildings. The roof edges can be a troublesome part of garden buildings. We offer maintenance free, fix-and-forget options. Timber fascia boards and barge boards around the edge of the roof can need more maintenance than anything else on a garden cabin. But of course, being the hardest part to maintain, they are the least likely to be painted and maintained. They are exposed to all weather conditions. Timber only lasts a limited amount of time under these harsh conditions. Whereas you will only need to wipe the uPVC ones with a damp rag every so often to keep them looking pristine.

Rot free fascia boards installed on garden cabin

Log cabin fascia board construction

The method of roof construction for log cabins means the barge boards are a 2 part construction. There is the main barge board which finishes the roof edge off neatly. But then there is a secondary part to it. This other part is the barge cover fillet. This plants on top of the barge board to form an L shape. This then covers over the edge of the roofing material (commonly felt shingles). The function of this is to stop the wind getting under the roofing material and blowing it off, or blowing rain under the roofing material.

Replace timber barge boards with uPVC fascia board for a long life — Typical barge board construction for a log cabin. The top cover fillet is constantly exposed to the weather and has a limited lifespan

Timber fascia boards have a limited life - uPVC last for ever!...No more maintenance — Typical barge board construction for a log cabin. The top cover fillet is constantly exposed to the weather and has a limited lifespan

Colour options for our fascia boards

The answer is to use something that doesn’t rot and ideally keeps it’s colour, and therefore is zero maintenance. This is why we offer uPVC fascia boards and barge boards as an upgrade for all of our log cabins, garden rooms and garden cabins.

Hortons offer 3 different “standard” colours of uPVC fascias –

White (flat white colour)
Light oak (natural wood colour with grain effect)
Black (flat black colour)

uPVC colour choices for Hortons Log Cabins

However, we can supply many more colour options if you want to colour match them with your garden cabin. Green, different shades of grey, various shades of woodgrain effect brown, etc. Although more expensive at the outset these uPVC options will actually save you money over the lifetime of the building.

Maintenance free options

Modern garden rooms are far more user friendly these days. We offer much more than maintenance free fascia boards. All of our buildings can be zero maintenance if supplied with our upgrade options –

uPVC or aluminium windows and doors (Guaranteed for 10 years but expected to last more than double that)
EPDM rubber roofing (guaranteed for 20 years with a life expectancy of 50 years)
Composite cladding (Hardie Plank is guaranteed for 15 years with a life expectancy of more than 30 years. And it’s Class A fire rated as well!)
uPVC fascia boards
uPVC plastic guttering

Of course the above options are only worth the expense if your building is constructed properly to start with! We offer various damp proofing options. Unlike many companies, we offer a damp proof kit with all of our buildings. Our floor construction is made specifically to invisibly “wrap” the whole floor. We don’t just lay a flat damp proof membrane (DPM) or strips of damp proof course (DPC). This is because rain can simple get on top of them. Which means that the timber bearers end up sitting in water as it cannot escape. Our system “dresses up” all around the outside of the bearers, so everything remains dry even if the area floods. We then cap it all around the outside with a timber fillet. This protects it from UV damage and mechanical damage (strimmers etc).

All of our log cabins for sale have the option to upgrade to the uPVC fascia boards – just look under the “Roofline” option and tick the colour you require.

We have more options if you would like more information on maintenance free garden buildings.

22 September 2025 By uklogcabins

Garden cabin column corners

Garden cabin column corners help protect the most vulnerable part of an interlocking cabin – the corner joints. Regardless of the type of joint used and how tight the joints are, a driving rain will penetrate these joints to some degree. Even tight joints can be vulnerable to capillary action.

Hortons carry out repair work on log cabins all the time. Nearly every log cabin that we repair has some deterioration around the corner joints. The worst being at the bottom as these are much more likely to catch rain. And also be vulnerable to rain water bouncing back up off the ground. This is quite often 2 fold –

Rain purely hitting the ground next to the cabin and rebounding against the cabin walls.
Rain water running off the roof, hitting the ground and rebounding against the cabin. This is a concentrated amount of water and will have a big detrimental affect over time, especially if there are hard surfaces around the cabin. An over-sized base or pathway running alongside the cabin, for instance.

Adding guttering will make a huge difference to the long term life of your cabin. This will stop the water cascading from the roof.

Column Corners

However, you can take other steps to help alleviate this. The easiest starting point are our column corners. This “boxes” the corners in to stop the weather getting to them to start with. Column corners need to be fixed using sliding joints as log cabins rise and fall through the seasons. Therefore we use slots to still allow the logs and cabin to move up and down. If you build your cabin in a very exposed position, column corners will help to protect them. Driving rain will penetrate into the joints. Painting your garden room regaularly will definitely help. You should makes sure that you work multiple layers of stain or paint into the corner joints as a minimum. Not weatherproofing your log cabin corner joints means it will start to show signs of damp in the corners.

This is a standard log cabin corner –

This is the same cabin but now fitted with column corners and guttering –

Column corners fitted and protecting the corner joints

As you can see, the column corners now protect the end grain (another vulnerable part of a log cabin), which will make the cabin last much longer. Note the slotted fixings at the bottom to let the cabin rise and fall through the seasons. We quite often fit these to log cabins that we are repairing, such as this Twin Skin –

Twin skin log cabin fitted with column corners

We also fitted uPVC windows and doors to this cabin as well as painting it.

It is more obvious with older cabins that they require column corners because there are signs of dark wood. These dark areas are generally a symptom of damp penetrating into the corners from outside. This then shows on the insides of the corners. Another tell-tale sign are dark patches on the skirting boards….

How to solve damp corners in a log cabin

These dark patches might not be very obvious if you decorate the cabin walls inside, as this masks the discolouration. However, if there is the slightest sign of damp showing through the paint then rest assured, damp is getting through.

5 April 2025 By uklogcabins

Maintenance free garden buildings

We all enjoy our garden rooms, but they all need maintenance, which most people don’t enjoy! If only there was an affordable maintenance free option for garden buildings! Please read on……

There are 3 areas of a timber garden room that generally require ongoing maintenance –

Roof
Walls
Joinery (windows and doors)

Garden building roofing

There are many types of roofing materials used on garden rooms, the most common being shed felt. This has a very limited lifespan and can easily be blown off by strong winds. We recommend using either –

Felt shingles (for apex style roofs) which come with a 10 year manufacturer’s warranty (and an expected lifespan of up to 30 years)
EPDM rubber roofing which comes with a 20 year manufacturer’s warranty. Unlike most garden building suppliers, we use uPVC edge trims and not timber strips. Timber strips will inevitably rot after a few years.

Walls – Maintenance free options

Most garden buildings are clad with timber boarding. This, of course, requires regular maintenance with preservative, painting or staining, and possibly replacing any rotten timber cladding boards. Even with regular painting, the walls will look tired where the sun will bleach the paint or stain. Not forgetting that the timber could possibly warp, bow, expand and contract through the different seasons.

There is another, no so well known, reason that timber may not be the best solution. UK Building Regulations state that any garden building measuring larger than 15 square metres internally AND closer than 1 metre to any boundary must be constructed of “non-combustible” material. Timber is definitely combustible!). This therefore limits the useable area within a standard garden building. It is not always practical to build a garden office, log cabin or even a large shed that far away from a boundary. Building into the garden wastes all of that spare space behind it.

So what’s the solution to resolve the above wall issues?

There are a couple of different types of “non-timber” cladding –

Composite cladding (made from a mixture of recycled wood fibres, recycled plastic, and bonding agents)

This resolves the maintenance issue (as they are maintenance free) as it comes self-coloured in various colours and just needs hosing or wiping down every now and then. However, it doesn’t resolve the combustibility issue. This type of cladding only achieves Class C or Class D according to the strict rules applied by “EN 13501-1: Fire Classification of Construction Products and Building Elements”. Only Class A is defined as being non-combustible, everything else is classified as being combustible to some degree….

EN 13501-1: Fire Classifications for building materials

Hardie Plank cement fibre cladding

This option resolves both issues, meaning it is “maintenance-free” (it comes in many colour options and has a guarantee for 15 years) AND has a fire rating of A2-s1-d0, which is the highest possible fire rating for a coloured facade/cladding product. This means it’s non-combustible AND won’t contribute to fire spread.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown:

A2: Indicates the reaction to fire and behaviour of the material (as shown above).
s1: Refers to the smoke production.
d0: Classifies the material in relation to flaming droplets/particles.

What does the “S” relate to?
The “S” part of the classification refers to smoke emission (or release) during combustion: S1 is classified as the quantity/speed of emission as being weak. This is the highest classification available.

What does the “d” relate to?
The “D” part of the classification relates to the creation of flaming droplets when exposed to test conditions. Test data reported no flaming droplets within a 600 second test period.

Trouble-free, fully compliant maintenance free garden buildings

Our range of framed garden buildings clad with HardiePlank (cement fibre boards) achieve everything you want from a maintenance free garden building. You can be build it anywhere in your garden (as long as it occupies no more than 50% of your garden) and fully comply with the 2 very important regulations that you need to commonly comply with….

No more than 2.5m high (planning permission – http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/outbuildings/miniguide)
If larger than 15sqm (internally) and closer than 1m to a boundary, a garden building needs to be made from substantially non-combustible materials.
Any garden building exceeding 30sqm will need to fully comply with Building Regulations, including the base (building regulations – https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200130/common_projects/43/outbuildings/2)

Joinery (windows and doors)

Windows and doors are the most vulnerable and time consuming part of a garden room. They are moving parts and they are very time-consuming to maintain (painting etc). We offer the ultimate solution for this – uPVC windows and doors. They require no maintenance at all other than a bit of a clean every now and then.

Easibuild Garden Buildings

Our range of framed “Easibuild” garden buildings (garden workshops, summer houses and garden offices) all have optional upgrades for the maintenance free options as listed above –

HardiePlank cladding.
Different roofing options.
uPVC windows and doors.

See how our maintenance-free timber building walls are constructed:

Hortons garden building wall cross section clad with HardiePlank

Our framed buildings look great when using HardiePlank cladding. The wood grain effect looks like a natural timber board, but without needing ongoing maintenance AND with the fireproofing built in!

UK Log Cabins framed building clad with HardiePlank

24 August 2024 By Keith Lynch

Adding an extra window to your log cabin

Hortons UK Log Cabins can upgrade your existing log cabin in numerous ways. One of the simplest is adding an extra window to your log cabin. Whether that is to get a better view or to introduce extra light into the cabin (or replace).

This customer sent us a photo of her existing log cabin which didn’t get any morning sun. Therefore she asked us to add an extra window so her studio could benefit from this extra light. You can see where there was a picture hanging on the wall which was the required size and position for the new window….

New cabin window to replace painting on the wall — External face of the log cabin where the new window is to be cut in

External face of the log cabin where the new window is to be cut in

As you can see, this enhances both the external look of the cabin and also the internal space which now looks much lighter. Adding an extra window to your log cabin is not expensive and is relatively quick and easy to do. After a couple of hours, the job is complete (this job in the photos above took about 1 hour).

Options for new cabin windows and doors

We can also add uPVC joinery to your existing log cabin, all shapes, designs and sizes of doors and windows. Beware of double glazing companies saying they can just insert new or replacement timber or uPVC windows and doors into your log cabin! They are almost certainly not aware of the movement and settlement cycle of a log cabin – not allowing for this will cause all sorts of problems with your cabin (gaps in wall logs, gaps around the windows and doors, leaking walls, etc).

31 August 2023 By Keith Lynch

Static caravan chassis

Static caravan chassis can support any of our log cabins or timber framed buildings. This then makes them comply with the caravan act. The caravan act has certain rules which you must adhere to. The main one (apart from the size limitations) is that the building must be able to be “transportable”. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to have wheels. It can have lifting eyes such that a crane can lift it onto a lorry which then transports it.

Choices for mobile home chassis

Not all sites have good access or level areas to site caravans. This is why we have developed a full range of steel chassis to cater for any eventuality.

Prefabricated steel chassis

Mobile home and park home twin wheeled chassis, made to any size

This is the traditional solution for park homes and static caravans. They come complete with twin wheels for stability whist manoeuvring. Plus a draw bar so a vehicle can push or pull it into position (usually a tractor). And additionally, jack legs which stabilise and level the structure once in position. We deliver directly to site, so good access is necessary to get you the property with a large artic lorry. You will also need the appropriate machinery available on our arrival to off-load the chassis.

“Knock-down” steel chassis kit

Static park home chassis in knock-down form - ready to assemble on site.

This kit is ideal for sites without good access for lorries. Or for sites that don’t have roadways to get to the actual site position within the property. We deliver them in kit form. This means that a long and wide lorry doesn’t need to deliver the chassis to your property. The parts are delivered individually to your address. You can then carry / transport these bite size parts to where you want to site the mobile home, park home or static caravan. All parts are in the kit which you will need to assemble it, including the nuts and bolts. So you will just need a few basic tools to assemble the chassis.

Build your mobile home or caravan chassis on site – no access restrictions!

You won’t need any heavy machinery like you would with a traditional wheeled chassis to move it to the build site or to actually build it.

All terrain steel chassis

Park home chassis suitable for any site - any size

Sometimes the ideal site will be on the side of a hill where there are great views. This usually creates a lot of extra work or it’s possibly not even feasible to transport a caravan to it. We have the solution. It is easily possible to build all of our of all terrain kits onto our adjustable concrete plinths.

Only a minimal amount of work assembles each of these plinths, even if the ground in very uneven. The metal shoes have a certain amount of adjustment (50mm). But if you need extra height adjustment, we can then provide extra concrete sections. These simply insert under the cap sheet and build it up to the required height. There is virtually no extra work required to add these concrete “shims”. Once the piers are complete, it is then just a case of assembling the steel chassis on top. The next stage is to cut and fit the heavy timber, which come with the kit. Finally fix the OSB deck over the whole area and you have a really strong level platform. Then you’re ready to build your timber home onto it.

Mobile home options

Once your steel static caravan chassis is complete, you can build any of our timber buildings and cabins onto it and comply with the caravan act. You can then take it one step further and build a fully insulated Twin Skin log cabin. This then makes it compliant with BS3632 which governs how warm the mobile home or park home needs to be.

Do you own a park home site and need a number of chassis ,or actual park homes complete with chassis? Please contact us as we can offer discounts for multiple orders.