elbec garden buildings Reviews 

Absolutely delighted. Cheepest price for 8x12 Forest Oakley Overlap Apex Summerhouse. Brilliant delivery service - so helpful with advice re storing the floor to keep dry before construction.

It wasn't the experience we had with elbec
That was fine just the product we bought
Weve had it for a year now and it has literally destroyed some of our possessions
It leaks and has a ton of condensation so when it's not even raining its damp inside.
Don't buy a metal garage bascially if u are storing all your garage goods in it

I found my experience to be very positive with Elbec garden buildings .
Once they had received the photos of the base they were able to provide a delivery date and a date for it to be built . I feel that it was worth paying the extra for the company to put the summerhouse up and am very happy with the result .

We bought a fence which we were pleased with. One panel didn’t match the others and Elbec arranged a swap, which is great service.

If I could give - 5 stars I certainly would have, Elbec are the worst company I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. We purchased a garden log cabin in April 2023 I hasten to add that although the building was purchased through Elbec it was manufactured by Shire Garden Buildings and was eventually erected (by Shire) in July 23 and we paid the extra money to have it erected, this is a log cabin 44mm spruce, double glazed with a felt tiled roof.
By August 23 I had contacted Elbec more than 15 times and requested 3 or 4 times that someone from management come out, we had window frames not fitting, floor trim the wrong way round, gaps at the bottom of the doors and 12mm gap between 2 boards. Shire sent teams to rectify these mistakes 3 times.
At the end of October 23 the heavy rain came pouring through the top of the gable end window and roof boards began to lift, after further emails and phone calls another team from Shire was sent who promptly told us that the building should never have been built like it was and they were unable to carry out repairs at that time as it was too big a job and the building needed to come down and rebuilt, after taking photos the team left.
More emails and phone calls to Elbec followed, by the middle of December nothing had been done, the roof has lifted further and the 12mm gap remains between boards and now floor boards have lifted.
Over 30 emails (all saved) and numerous phone calls only to receive replies of “We genuinely appreciate your patience and understanding during this process and sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused”.
I realise I should have looked harder at the reviews (416 bad reviews since 2011 - 49 bad reviews in 2023 !) DO NOT BUY FROM ELBEC, I have even threatened them with court action - to no avail.
But social media is a wonderful thing and it can make or break a business and I am posting this on every platform available !
Just search YouTube !

Ordered a Mercia Helios Summerhouse 10ft x 8ft - Ordered online, no problems, delivery date booked and kept to. Delivery driver was excellent, arrived on time and unloaded to my chosen spot.

For a budget Sumerhouse it went together fairly well, couple of panels slightly out, one panel hadn't been nailed down the side - easily fixed. Doors were too big for the frame - had to shave 3mm off each one so they would shut. Hinges are rubbish, cheap & thin - won't last. One piece of wood was too long and had to be cut down (2nd door stay).

Instructions fairly good - supplied with the sumerhouse and also available online.

Was a lot more screws provided than actually listed in the inventory - not sure why ! Extra pack of 60mm and a big pack of mixed screws \ nails....

Would be good if the nasty plastic windows could be supplied with glass - Pastic ones need to be sealed in with mastic or they rattle in the wind!

Not sure about the 10 year rot guarantee - who is realisticaly going to to repaint their sumerhouse every 12months...AND keep the receipts ? Make no modifications ?

There were a few problems, but they were dealt with straight away.
The communications from elbec was exceptional.

The corner summer house was much larger than I was anticipating, and far superior quality for the price. It is solidly built with glass not plastic windows. And was easy to put together.

The delivery was surprisingly fast; I received my order within just a couple of days. Exceptional service all around. Will definitely order from this store again.

3 stars for delivering on the day and time specified.
As for the 12 & 8 summer house we would not recommend anyone buying it.. The t& g panels have loads of knots in and some have dropped out so there's holes you can see daylight. The rain comes in some of the joints where the T & g supppose to slot in together. 2 of the side panels the t& g over hand the edge of the frame work so did not line up till it was cut off to make it butt upto the next panel. Same with the roof panels. The 3 strips of pre cut roofing felt barely hung ove the edg we had approx 1/2 inch hang over. The windows which are pre fixed into the panels are out of line tight at the top side going into a gap at the bottom. The opening windows are not much better. The window catches are cheap and sloppy we ended up buying case window latches so the windows would close upto the frame better. The floor is very thin timber. All in all very unsatisfied. With workmanship and timber. The screws where useless the heads snapped off or the threads broke we had to go buy a box of decent screw. We also had to buy extra timbers to strengthen in places. After 3 coats of wood treatment and 3 coats of creosote inside and out and filler the rain still comes in through some of the t & g joints.
We bought this in the sale so did not pay full price. But the sale price now seems too expensive for this. To us this is a seconds with all tthe faults . Knot holes and all the knots in the timber and nothing is square. Having said that all the extra we had to buy to make it look right it does look somewhat ok apart from a few rain in problems which I'm sure my husband will get sorted.

Ive not received my order yet because ive only just ordered it today.

I ordered the wrong summer house and had the most fantastic customer care from Sean who phoned me back twice at the times he said. He reassured me about my refund being processed and then I went onto purchase the correct one.
Im looking forward to receiving my Summer house next week.
Thanks

All in all an easy company to deal with,transactions were easy,driver turned up when he said he would and was very friendly.summer house went up ok,plans were easy to follow,no bits missing.

The sales person was very informative and the delivery date was very flexible. The summerhouse seems to fill all our expectations.

Absolutely a fantastic company to deal with. Deliveries have been so quick. Curtesy calls with large orders and emails informing about progress of order.
What more would you want.

I have had the worst experience and am still not satisfied with the outcome but Elbec are trying there utmost best to get things sorted for me, the customer service team are really helpful.

The hatch is badly bowed and the bolts to hold it in place are too small

The potting shed was piled in a very random fashion in the middle of our drive, despite the fact that there was ample space along a wall to the side of the drive. The driver and mate where very off hand when asked to re position it or stack it properly and not in the way. I do understand what "kerbside only" and is the delivery status, but to drop right in the middle of the drive was not necessary. My partner is a delivery driver for a large furniture company and would never speak to a customer the way they spoke to him!!!
This spoilt out rating opinion as the shed itself is good quality and went together well!

Order and delivery process was simple, straightforward and arrived on time. Construction is fairly straightforward. However, beware, read the instructions carefully if you haven't attempted anything like this before. For a start: a simple idea would be to label the fixings used so that whoever is assembling it doesn't have to guess what screws are what. Some of the build process via the instructions didn't make sense and in reality would not have been possible as the fixings supplied were far too short. An easy enough work around though if common sense is applied. Obviously being wood, there's the possibility of discrepancies in the product, in my case, one of the legs was not the best - something that the quality control should have spotted and replaced, however something I could work with as it wasn't viable from behind. I have also found that personally the assembled product when finished needed additional fixings to tighten it up and pull it together slightly more, but on the whole a good product for the price. Would potentially buy another product from them .

Kept us up to date all the time.

It went together well, but was missing some wood infill; the security bolts were totally useless.The Knots in some of thepanels had fallen out.