When my old wooden shed succumbed to the years of Florida, heat & humidity, the search for a better shed was on. Of course, I wanted everything: a shed that would not rot, strong enough to handle the tropical storms, have plenty of space to park mountain bikes, have a height close to our 6 ft privacy fence, and of course, not cost thousands of dollars. Whew, what a list!
I literally spent days visiting stores and reading reviews and shed specifications online. I decided on a vinyl or plastic shed for all weather durability. Unfortunately, the ones I found locally were either way too tall or they had limited side and roof support.
I finally chose the Duramax 8×8 shed because it’s made of vinyl which means it won’t rust, rot, or mildew, is wind tested to 115mph, supposedly can hold 1200 pounds on the roof, has double doors, and only stands 73inches tall. It sounded like everything I was looking for, so when the boxes arrived I opened them with some trepidation. Would this really be what I hoped for?
Since it was my first time assembling a shed, I had to do the unthinkable; read the directions!
Assembling the shed, I was impressed at how it is built the same way as a regular framed building.
The shed starts with a steel base frame and then vertical steel studs connect every few feet. The roof took me awhile because I had to assemble 4 steel trusses. These steel trusses connect to the vertical studs to complete the frame. You can definitely tell the Duramax is designed to be stronger than your average vinyl shed. Reading the directions & working mostly on my own in the summer heat, I had it together in one long day.
Once assembled, the final step is to weatherproof it which involves caulking the joints. The directions guide you, but Florida rain can come from all directions and often heavy so I pretty much caulked everywhere I thought water could come in. On a side note, I used clear silicone caulk so you don’t see bright white caulk lines everywhere.
The first few deluges revealed places I needed to add caulk, but soon I had the shed fully weather tight. My only real issue was rain water flowing in under the double doors because there isn’t a lower horizontal door stop. I have a concrete patio so I didn’t use the Duramax foundation kit & maybe their foundation kit resolves this. My solution was to add a small piece of metal horizontally on the concrete floor across the door way. It’s low enough that you don’t trip on it, but yet tall enough to keep the rain water out and also provides a latching point for the slide locks on the doors.
5 months of summer heat, numerous wind & thunderstorms later, I’m happy to say the Duramax shed is still weather tight and continues to hold more and more of our stuff. Loading and unloading everything from ladders to mountain bikes is easy thanks to the double doors. I added plastic shelves along one whole side to hold all the misc items which ensures plenty of open floor space. The height came out perfect as the only part visible above the fence is a few inches of the roof apex. So if you’re looking for a roomy, durable, low maintenance shed, that is perfect fence height for most homeowners associations, take a look at the Duramax vinyl 8×8 shed. They are available from numerous shed vendors online.
