How We Test Our Products:

Being the brand leader for original and unique DIY, Garden & Construction products, we thought we'd give you an insight as to how this marvel comes about…

When you buy our products you are not just buying 'something made somewhere and sold by someone' - you are buying products that have been originally invented, rigorously tried and tested, have intellectual property protection and do what they are supposed to do, for your peace of mind. With a bit of luck our products won't let you down 'in the field' and we always have stocks of our products and thoughtful intelligent customer service - we don't employ children to follow a script who don't know what to say if you ask them what day it is, which just irritates and annoys EVERYBODY.

We try to be as competitive on price as we can but quality and originality does cost. We don't intend being a fly by night Company. We are hell bent on taking over the universe with our amazing innovative products which is why product testing is highly important to us!

So here's how we test our stuff. We undertake a few different tests to create a product finally ready for you to enjoy:

1). The Hammer Test: this is always a classic. What we do is take a big hammer and beat our products to see how much force and abuse they can take before they either break into little pieces or become too deformed to still be useable. This tends to highlight any flaws in strength and durability and also relieves all that personal stress and anguish lol :

2). The Kick Test: we then kick our products around in a concrete and steel constructed room to determine how much/long our products can be booted around until they fail. The Kick Test also involves jumping up and down on the product to see how much of a pounding it can take before it breaks.

3). The Compress & Stretch Test: We squash, stretch, rip and tear and pull the products apart, to determine their strength and breaking point. This highlights if the product needs to be reinforced or redesigned and highlights any weaknesses of any individual components.

4). The Fire Test: That's right - we actually set them on fire to see how long it takes the product to melt into a heap. The fire test also helps to see how well any 'coated' products have been made and what happens to the product under heat.

5). The Field Test: This is the biggy. Testing our products in the field. The process of invention means constant testing of your prototypes until you reach a prototype that is market ready for sell. We test all of our prototypes in the field in all sorts of conditions depending on what the product is to be used for and we actually use our products ourselves! You may wonder why there is that exclamation mark there but you'll be surprised at how many people in products never ever use their own products. These people are the pen pushers - the people paid to invent stuff for industries they know absolutely nothing about and who will never ever use the product. It will go straight to retail with the 'lets keep our fingers crossed' outlook. We don't do that. We might not be first to market, but our stuff will work properly! We also give our products out to test groups and individuals for feedback to see if there are any other improvements before we finally launch the product. Sometimes there is feedback even after product launch, from customers that have used the products in different ways and who have provided feedback to us. We immediately act upon this constructive criticism to make our products even better for you.

6). The Lab Test: Most of our products are fairly simple and straightforward and are designed to solve problems and help people do things easier than before. Many of these products are good enough to sell without there being any Laboratory testing due to the nature of them. However, some products need Lab testing under controlled conditions for health and safety reasons and to ensure products meet and generally exceed industry benchmark standards. In these instances, our products are sent to a Lab who test and report findings that are then used to improve products (if necessary) before product launch. This has been done on our Fencebrackets® to ensure the degreasing and powder coating is up to an extremely good standard of adhesion and resilient to UV and Water for a minimum period of time. The Lab will also carry out proper fire testing, tensile strength tests, compression and fracture tests and wind tunnel tests. In fact, all tests appropriate to the use of the product. Testing does cost money. We don't just phone some idiot somewhere in Asia and get them to copy someone else's product for us and then sell it, trying to impersonate brands and plagiarise marketing campaigns, we rigorously test our products and work closely with our manufacturers to produce top quality goods. Remember to look for our Mr. Logoman character on the pack!

7). CE & Kite Marking: Many products do not require this marking or certification and in fact it is an offence to label a product as CE certified if there is no requirement to do so. This Certification is given after the above tests have been carried out and signed off by a governing body - usually British Standards. If our product doesn't carry any CE certification, it doesn't mean it hasn't been tested. ALL of our market leading products and brands are a sign of quality. We test everything! Our manufacturers hold CE certificates and are approved to ISO standards. We don't use slave labour because we wouldn't get away with it, but we do believe in and fully support an absolute minimum wage as people deserve to be paid at least the bare minimum for their toil in producing our fantastic products!

8). Materials Selection: Not a test as such but we carefully chose and test materials that will be used to manufacture our products. We look into the attributes, compositions and capabilities of different materials and ensure we choose materials that will best suit the product and its purpose. We are precise in choosing any treatments or manufacturing processes and tend to look into the ECO Friendliness of all these materials and manufacturing processes before we select the final materials. We also deeply consider the Environmental impact during the life of, and the afterlife of our products. We want to know how they will affect the Environment during their life and also once they're finished. We want our products to do good in the world and make it a better place.

There it is folks - how we test our products and the reasons you should stick with us.