September Update

Kebur have been enjoying a busy summer with plenty going on.

In the last couple of weeks a website has been launched where you can buy full packs of Bradstone online and have them delivered nationwide. Check out the site.

Kebur Bradstone Website

We are in the process of building our new main website as well. A few final things need to be sorted but we expect to launch the site in early October. We hope our new site is going to be user-friendly with a more clean and modern feel to our current site. The aim is to have simple navigation and an improved search function. You will also be able to add products to a basket/list for a quote request.

Having been quite busy this year we have had to purchase another teletruk forklift to cope with the loading and unloading of lorries in our yard and to keep the place tidy and organised. Mini Me is happy as this one has a “door” so he can stay nice and dry! We have also invested in a device called “Nail Biter” which is in effect a large magnet on wheels that can be pushed around the yard to pick up loose nails etc.

With regards to stock issues, we are pleased to say that the fencing situation finally seems to be easing with lead times shortening. Lap panels should be readily available for all sizes within the next couple of weeks and our suppliers are also trying to get the lead time down on closeboard panels as well.

Bricks are also becoming more readily available and we have stock of the Warnham Red, Warnham Terracotta, Chartham Multi, Hurstwood Multi and Rudgwick Multi once again with a couple of further loads due this month.

Visitors may notice a new face or two when they visit. Christine has joined the office sales team and Ellie who has been with us for a couple of years now, working at the weekends whilst studying at college, is currently with us full time.

The landscaping division continues to be busy and they have completed a number of jobs of late. We have been noticing an increase in sales of artificial grass and the landscaping division has undertaken several jobs using our range.

Dual Grooved Decking, with Lakeland artificial grass, softwood sleeper retaining wall and Elite St Melior Trellis, with concrete posts and gravel boards.

June 2014

Almost halfway through the year already and what a busy year it has been so far.  A quick update on what has been happening at Kebur in the last few weeks.

• The Thakeham paving part of our indoor showroom has been completed
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• We have added a new lorry to our fleet to ensure we maintain a prompt and reliable delivery service. This will replace a smaller old lorry.
  

  New lorry

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• We have also purchased a 4×4 telescopic forklift truck which replaces an old forklift. This is our first 4×4 forklift truck and we hope it will be able to cope a lot better with the part of our yard which is made of more uneven terrain.
• The landscaping division continues to thrive and they also have a new van.
• Fencing panel shortages continue to be a problem with lead times for certain panels extending to up to two months in the worst cases.
• Brick shortages are also a problem with the revival of the construction industry. A lot of the factories were mothballed in the recession and as a result manufacturers struggle to keep up with demand.
• Our own imported Indian Sandstone has proved to be popular and is excellent value.  The 2014 reductions in price of the Honeymede Limestone and of the Smooth Sandstone has also made these great value choices and have therefore grown hugely in popularity.
• Staff news.  Yardman Charley is back to work following his motorbike injury. He is assisting in the office and has also returned to light yard duties. There are also a number of new faces, Richard and Jack in the yard, whilst Kevin is splitting his time as a delivery driver and with the landscape division

April Update

We have just about enough time to catch our breath on a fairly quiet and wet Friday afternoon to bring you an April news update.  It has been a hectic month with people taking advantage of the fine weather and strengthening economy to carry out their garden projects.  We have of course just had Easter weekend and with two more Bank Holiday weekends in the coming weekend we envisage being kept busy for some time yet.

It’s not been all plain sailing though with stock shortages causing an issue on certain product lines.  Timber has been in huge demand due to an upturn in the construction industry and fencing in particular has been affected due to the succession of storms we experienced at the start of the year.  As a result such items are on rationed allocations from the suppliers with extended lead times.  It is a frustrating situation for all concerned as we try our best to source the materials to keep up.  We do now have extended lead times with an order book on fence panels as we fulfill orders on a first come first served basis.  We appreciate the efforts made from our suppliers and the patience shown by our customers during such a testing time.  The fencing crisis has been well documented in the national news with reports even coming in that panels have been sold on the black market for up to £80.  We can ensure our customers we have kept our prices at our usual level.

We have launched our new logo using an orange background and we have installed eye-catching new signage all around the yard and looking out towards the A331

New Kebur Signage

In other developments we have launched our new 2014 range of artificial grass and these are already proving to be popular.  Also look out for our own trade packs of sandstone available soon at an excellent price, imported directly from India in three colour choices.  Many of the Bradstone Natural Stone paving products such as limestone, slate, granite and smooth sandstone have been reduced in price for this year.  Our indoor showroom “wall display” is being re-vamped with the Bradstone section now complete.

Kebur Showroom

We welcome new recruit Richard to our team of yard staff whilst Josh, son of owner Tony is on his first day today.  Unfortunately Charley one of our yard staff had a serious motocross bike accident in early April and had to be air lifted to hospital. He broke his hip which was so serious he was put into an induced coma. Luckily his bike helmet saved his life, he is recovering well now and even  came to visit us last weekend. We wish him further progress in a speedy recovery and look forward to him returning when he is able to.

The landscaping division have recently completed jobs using Bradstone Natural Sandstone Silver Grey and also Stonemarket Vintage Abbey Earthen paving.  They continue to be inundated with enquiries and are booked up deep into the year.

Stonemarket Vintage Abbey Earthern Paving with Vintage Compass Circles as installed by the landscape division

Remember you can keep in touch with the world of Kebur by liking our facebook page and following us on twitter @keburgardens

March Update

The new season quickly draws upon us, however we have already had a busy start to the year.  Storms that began on Christmas Eve and then returned two or three weeks ago have kept us very busy with fencing orders.  Such heavy demand has led to national shortages and rationing of stock, however we had been able to build up stocks of lap and closeboard panels to cater for this.  The sudden increase in demand immediately after the storms has unfortunately led to us selling out, however with thanks to the service supplied to us by Grange Fencing we have generally not had to keep our customers waiting too long to fulfill their orders, given the circumstance.

The recent floods, that although didn’t effect our immediate area too much, did hit people in areas such as Reading, Egham, Staines and Guildford and we did supply sandbags to some of these areas.  We hope all those who have been so unfortunate to have been effected are able to get things back to normal as quickly as possible.

The landscaping division have largely been kept busy with an array of fencing jobs, but did last week complete their first main paving project of 2014.  The guys laid Bradstone Natural Slate Blue-Black Paving, Silver Grey Granite Setts in an LED lit path with Oak Sleeper Planters at the Gamekeepers Pub and Eatery in Mapledurwell near Basingstoke.  The landscaping team can also confirm that the food is very good and can highly recommend The Gamekeepers for a nice meal out!

 

We welcome three new members to the Kebur workforce, Phil a delivery driver who started a couple of weeks ago, Luke who works in the yard on the weekend and new sales assistant Joanna who is currently in her first week.

Coming soon:

• New additions to our special offers page
• The indoor show area is currently being updated with a refreshed paving display
• A new, improved and even better value range of artificial grasses
• Expanded range of drainage products including underground pipe with accessories and soakaway crates
• A new perimeter fence that runs alongside the A331 has recently been erected, look out for new signage in the next week or so
• New/updated company logo and colour scheme
• New developments to kebur.co.uk website
• New additions to Kebur fleet of vehicles
• A dry and sunny summer for us all to enjoy in our gardens – fingers crossed!

 

 

New Year 2014

Happy New Year to you all.

In our last post we briefly discussed the new products Stonemarket have introduced for 2014.  Bradstone have now also launched their new products and can be viewed on the Bradstone website.  The main highlights include a layered slate effect concrete paving, a traditional worn looking paving called Aged Riven available in a 300×450 dark grey shade for a linear look.  A new natural stone called Porphyry which is available in two textured finishes and a fine textured smooth sandstone called Ferndale.  The Driveflair block paving has been re-vamped so that it is now available in a three size format, whilst a number of edgings and stepping stones have merged in from what was the Borderstone range.

New: Bradstone Layered Slate Effect Paving

Amongst the new Grange Fencing products are driveway and courtyard gates, a new style of elite square lattice trellis, a couple of new bridges, a new two tone coloured arch and various new panels.  Look out for these soon.

New: Grange Fencing Driveway Gates

We have been exceptionally busy for January.  Normally this time of year the cold weather prevents a lot of landscaping work.  However the storms we experienced on Christmas Eve and the strong winds and rain we have had since has led to a very high demand in replacement fence panels, posts and repair spurs.  The mild temperatures have also allowed landscapers to continue paving (between the rain).

Something else that has been in demand with the recent winds is shed felt, which we are now selling.  So if you are in need of replacement felt we supply a standard and heavy duty felt as well as the nails and adhesive.

With increased consumer spending and growing confidence, we are optimistic for a successful year.  Should you have any landscaping needs please give us a call on 01252 517571.

 

 

November Update

2013 seems to have flown by and it’s been a good year at Kebur.  The mild November we have been having seems to have extended the landscaping season and we continue to be busy.  Furthermore the strong winds of early November saw an increase in demand for fencing.  Fingers crossed the cold weather and snow stays away, but if it does come we have plenty of rock salt and snow shovels in stock.

We have recently introduced a few new products into our drainage range, including square to round recessed manhole covers and perforated land drainage pipe coils.  Since the 1980’s new build houses tend to have Polypropylene Inspection Chambers (PPIC’s) installed which are round.  Before this time manholes were constructed from brickwork or concrete and in England and Wales these were rectangular 600x450mm size.  With these round PPIC’s it can be difficult when laying paving or blocks in a landscape project.  Square to round manholes make slabbing up to the cover a breeze as slabs can be cut to suit the profile of the frame whilst the circular opening with it’s universal PPIC positioning spigot locates directly onto the chamber, dramatically reducing installation times.

Square to Round Manhole Covers

pVCU Corrugated and perforated drainage pipe coil is installed for sub-soil drainage.  The corrugated profile gives improved flow and durability for all types of agricultural, leisure projects and land drainage.  We are stocking 80mm and 100mm diameter pipe coil in 25m lengths as well as juntions.

Land Drain Pipe

We have also in the last couple of days had new Electronic Point of Sale (Epos) systems installed.  We have updated the hardware and added in an extra till.  We hope this will reduce queue times in the busy summer periods and improve efficiency.   The painfully slow archaic dot matrix printers have been replaced with quick laser printers, so no waiting around for invoices/receipts to be printed!  We are looking into how we can make best use of the Epos system to suit our business so there maybe further changes ahead.

New counter layout with extra till

The yard guys have been busy undertaking some maintenance tasks and the main project has been to repair the aggregate bays where over time the digger has caused damage.  They have been dug out and re-concreted and are now fully operational again.  As things have quietened down a little there has been more time to tidy up and re-arrange things slightly in the yard.  Mini-Me and his team have done a great job with this and with slight changes to the layout of the stock we hope loading will be even quicker and easier now.

At the end of October Ian and Tony visited an event held by Stonemarket at their factory in Ryton near Conventry.  One of the main reasons for the show was to unveil their new products for 2104.  They are launching a number of luxury natural stone paving ranges sourced from all over the world as well as a new linear block paving driveway option, versatile Rio Palisades and two new colours to their Haus “engineered concrete” paving.  Look out for all of these in the 2014 brochure which will be available soon.  Meanwhile here’s a sneak peak at one of the natural stone paving ranges:

Nordus Schwarz, deep blue-grey brushed Brazilian Slate

October News Bulletin

• There has been a recent shortage on reclaimed sleepers, but we are pleased to say we now have these back in stock.
  

  Reclaimed Sleepers

• Regency Ripple 450×450 in Grey colour are on special offer.  Down from £3.45 to a bargain price of £2.60.
• We have a large stock of concrete blocks 440x215x140mm on special offer at just £1.05 each including VAT.
• The landscape division have recently completed jobs in Aldershot (granite paving), Epsom (limestone paving), Weybridge (Artificial Grass) and Ash (sandstone paving).  They have a busy schedule ahead in October.
  

  Sunset Buff Sandstone in Ash

• Cliff and Ian visited GLEE, the garden and leisure exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham, meeting potential new suppliers as well as existing ones.  Grange Fencing unveiled their new range of driveay and courtyard gates, so look out for these next year.
• New display boards promote some of the ranges of Stonemarket Paving
  

  Stonemarket Paving Display Boards

• We have a new display stand promoting the range of ACO drain channels
  

  ACO drain channels

• Congratulations to Alfie, one of our yardmen who passed his driving test this week.
• Julian who has been working in the office this summer has left us and we wish him all the best in his future.

August Update

We have been having a pretty good year at Kebur and with the weather so much better than it was last year people are spending more time in their gardens.

Our landscape division has been busy and continues to expand.  The guys have completed a number of great projects.  The highlights being a job in Mapledurwell where some Finesse Limestone was laid around a swimming pool, a blue-black slate patio was installed with dark grey granite sett paths and New Oak Sleeper planters.  Patios in Natural Sandstone featuring sweeping curves were laid in Fossil Buff and Silver Grey in Farnborough and Camberley respectively.  Images of the jobs can be viewed on the Installation page of our website.  The various jobs currently on highlight the diversity of projects the guys get involved in with artificial grass going down in Ash, decking in Farnborough and a patio and garden wall in Arborfield.

Silver Grey Sandstone Patio

Since launching our new range of artificial grasses in the Spring we have seen sales rise quite dramatically.  We are now offering superior products at a much more competitive price.  The popularity has risen as technology has evolved and the grasses have become much more realistic.  People love the low maintenance factor and with children it offers a safe and clean playing surface.

We have a few new products at Kebur.  We now supply the driveway/patio cleaners Oil-Away and Salt-Away (efflorescence remover).  The popular Geo-Fix jointing compound is now also available as an all-weather product meaning you can apply it in the rain.  We are also now stocking 4” by 1” timber for shuttering as we often get asked for it and joist hangers for decking.  We also now have a new supplier for natural screening, so once again are selling Willow and Heather Screenings.

We are currently running special offers on Silver Grey Natural Granite Paving, Ashbourne Paving and the attractive Grange Elite St Meloir Trellis.

Elite St Meloir Trellis

June Update

May proved to be a very busy month for us and with the lovely weather that has greeted the start of June we hope to continue in this vein.

At the end of April, the winner of the Kebur Community Challenge as run by radio station 96.4 Eagle was announced.  The lucky winners were St Michael’s Project Group in Camberley.  They are a group of people who live in four storey flats with little or no garden or community areas. The housing association has recently given them three overgrown gardens to work on and create a beautiful area where the community can come together for social and community events. They can work together to create something good and we are sure the £2000 worth of materials will go a long way towards helping make that happen.

We regularly advertise on 96.4 Eagle and we hope listeners will have enjoyed our recent series of adverts based on a farmer and his wife discussing their relative needs for garden products!

We have been busy further improving our show areas, with new boards displaying yet more paving, block paving and the ACO groundguards.  Our shed area been enhanced with the attractive black and white granite chippings and there will soon be a couple of sample arches and arbours within that area as well.

A couple of years ago we were supplying the popular Rugdwick Multi clay brick pavers.  These proved to be popular for courtyards, patios as well as used for edgings.  Unfortunately the Rudgwick factory had to be closed down.  But we are now pleased to tell you that another Wienerberger factory is producing a very similar product and we have plenty in stock here in our yard in Farnborough.  The new brick pavers are called Smokejacks, they are available in either a multi or a terracotta shade and are 220x115x50mm.

Smokejack Pavers; Teracotta (left) and Multi (right)

For June 2013 we have the Bradstone Ashboure Patio Packs on special offer.  With four colour choices to choose from these attractive riven concrete slabs are outstanding value at the fantastic price of £17.45 a sq mtr including VAT.

Bradstone Ashbourne

We are pleased to say that our new range of artificial grasses launched earlier this year has proven to be popular, with the sales of Wembley (held in stock) being especially encouraging.

Thakeham Landscaping Products

Thakeham Tiles is a concrete manufacturer based in Storrington, West Sussex.  For over 75 years this family run business has been producing an evolving range of garden products using locally sourced materials and supplying throughout the South East.

The company started in 1933, producing concrete roof tiles but seeing little future in this they started manufacturing paving slabs and walling blocks instead.

Since Kebur Garden Materials stopped manufacturing their own paving in the early 2000’s, Thakeham have been a key supplier for them.  Thakeham prove to be a reliable supplier and the two companies seek to continue their prosperous working relationship.  The key lines that Thakeham supply to Kebur are two lines of wet cast paving; Regency Ripple and Flagstone Riven Edge.  With both of these ranges there are various sizes and circle features available.  In addition to this Thakeham supply Kebur with the elegant Sovereign paving with its antique colours and hand tooled textures that capture the smooth timeworn look of chancery settings.  Furthermore the textured Sussex Paving and indeed the complete Thakeham range can be ordered from Kebur.

Thakeham are also a big supplier of structural concrete blocks and the growth in this sector has risen to such an extent that it now caters for around half of their business.

A view of the Thakeham site from the Sand Hoppers

A wander around the site at Thakeham and you quickly discover that some of the techniques and machinery is quite archaic, but quite simply these tried and tested techniques continue to prove to be the most effective way of producing certain elements of their range.  For example the semi drymix rock faced walling, screen walling blocks, pier caps and pillars all made from a semi dry-mix are still largely “hand-made”.  That is not to say that all their practices are reminiscent of a bygone era, with their concrete blocks and wet cast paving being produced with much more modern machinery and automated techniques.

Press to make the Screen Walling

 

Screen Walling Blocks curing

 

Red Regency Ripple wet cast paving on the production line and vibrating plate

 

Grey Regency Ripple slabs curing in their moulds (foreground) and banded on pallets (background)

Thakeham run their own fleet of vehicles and also use outside hauliers in busier times.  In peak times in Spring/Summer, Thakeham will deliver to Kebur at least once a week and often two to three times a week.  Despite the rise in popularity in imported natural stone, there is still a great demand for concrete paving.  Nonetheless Thakeham recognise the need to find ways of further improving and expanding their range, so watch this space!