With hand-made products it is only right that there should be individual designs.
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All our products are designed in-house with, where appropriate, the approval of the official body concerned (The Hawk & Owl Trust, RSPB etc). |
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Over 450 Tons of high quality softwood re-cycled timber is processed every year which is used to make the wide variety of products you see on offer. |
Pathway Workshop are well equipped for the production of a full range of wooden garden and wildlife items, currently supplied to many of the garden centres throughout the county and direct to the public.
The workshop prides itself on being environmentally friendly, an achievement that has been recognised by several awards during the past few years.
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Buying a Pathway Workshop product has the obvious benefit that every penny spent goes directly towards supporting those less fortunate than ourselves, but as it is possible to buy outdoor furniture at almost any price, why not, out of choice, just buy the cheapest available ?
The answer is that outdoor furniture will be rotten or broken in 2-3 years unless it is made of high quality, durable, weatherproof materials - and many mass produced products aren't – whether they are made from hardwood or softwood.
Furniture usually sold at superstores as "outdoor" wooden furniture is usually made of a non-weatherproof wood that has been painted. This presents two problems:
Firstly, these woods are nowhere near as strong and durable as weatherproof wood. You can literally pick up a non-weatherproof wood product and know the difference. For example, mass produced chairs normally weigh between 20 and 25 pounds, while weatherproof wood chairs weigh 37 pounds upwards.
Secondly, paint does not last, and so the wood underneath will soon become exposed to the elements due to the ageing of the paint and its shielding properties, scratches and gaps in the paint at the joints due to expansion and contraction of the wood due to temperature/atmospheric change.
The bottom line is that no furniture is weatherproof unless the material used to make it is weatherproof.
Europe has been flooded in recent years with Far Eastern imitation “hardwood” that is not weatherproof. You can spot this “hardwood” at
garden stores because you can see that it has
been coated with a “protectant” and that the “protectant” soon peels and flakes off in little pieces.
When the "hardwood" underneath is exposed to the
elements, it blackens and rots. Furniture like this is
good outdoors for only 2-3 seasons, and it starts
looking bad within months.
Be especially wary when outdoor furniture is displayed indoors in a store. The only way to know what you're buying is to see it outdoors in the elements.
Do not make the mistake of buying a non-weatherproof wood merely because it has a "weatherproof paint", because in the long run, there is no such thing.
from sustainable forest sources.
Telephone: 01865 714111 Fax: 01865 715111 Email: enquiries@pathway-workshop.co.uk