What is the difference between Outbuilders’ Sheds and Home Depot’s Tuff Sheds?

Our last article explained the difference between our sheds and Costco sheds. It was quite shocking as the cost, material and labor were extremely toward our favor. Needless to say, we were less expensive, better quality and built within hours versus months. After we released this information, we were bombarded with questions about Home Depot and their “Tuff Sheds”, so here is the article you all requested!

First things first, Home Depot doesn’t manufacturer the sheds nor do they own the company. In fact, the sales representatives at Home Depot are not trained too well on Tuff Sheds. When asking about what they are built with or what kind of materials, they simply do not know. Tuff Shed just offers their materials and Home Depot helps with financing and hires a person to build it onsite. This kind of arrangement has many side affects because there are many elements that are missing when it comes to custom designing, measuring, professionalism and the actual building of the product itself.

When investing in an outdoor shed, garage, barn or lean to, it’s important not to miss any details as the project could get expensive with errors, so every little detail counts. When you are at Home Depot, your choices for customization are limited; from the people they hire to measure and build on your site to the customizations itself. Home Depot prefers you do not make many customizations because they know they can’t sell it. Customizations for a Tuff Shed can become costly, and they set it up that way to discourage anyone from attempting to change the simple designs. For example, if you wanted to add a window, it practically could double the cost of a simple shed alone!

Home Depot hires a local licensed handy man to build your shed. This is an added cost that is non-negotiable. They have to first find one that is available and then schedule them to come to your house for measurements. Hundreds of reviews mention that it takes at least 2 weeks for someone to get to your house just to measure, then another two weeks to a month to schedule the building of it. In some cases, after paying all funds up front, customers do not get their Tuff Shed installed for 2 months! This is fine if we are talking about a large project like a garage or a mini house, but a shed? That is ridiculous. Here are some reviews.

Another issue we have found from Home Depot Tuff Sheds’ were the foundation. Many installers do not know the code for building in their county and often ask the homeowner to pour a foundation prior to installing. Some county codes will want you to have a permit for the shed if it has a foundation and if you build one without a permit, you could be eligible for fines or worse, have to tear the whole thing down. This happens a lot! That is why it is so important to have a local shed building company like us be there from start to finish to protect your investment from little mistakes that turn into larger ones.

One last issue is the material. Tuff Shed manufactures the shed parts at their facility in Redding, CA and ship the materials to your home. You are at the mercy of a conveyor with deadlines. The wood choices are not a priority nor are the materials when boxed and shipped. By the time the materials reach your home, you are at the mercy of a green installer whom doesn’t understand how to fix bowed boards or worse not have the right equipment to install the shed according to the specs. The installer has their own equipment and many times will have to delay the build in order to find missing parts, correct equipment or worse not know what they are doing. Not all sheds shipped to your house from another state come with the proper materials as human error definitely comes into play.

According to Home Depot, “The Home Depot’s custom shed installers are local, licensed, insured, and have undergone a thorough background-screening process before conducting a free consultation.” Sounds good right? Well, not all of them build sheds all day long like we do. The installers that Home Depot hires are on call to do side projects only to make extra income. They are not full time shed builders! You really do not know what to expect from your installer. With Outbuilders, we build 2 – 5 sheds a day. It’s all we do! We know the county and the city codes in Central Oregon, have the right equipment, hand pick our materials and can have your shed build within hours and not months = and for less money! Sounds like a no brainer to me.