Buy cheap, buy twice, they say; but once was one time too many. And it wasn't even cheap, especially when we had to pay a premium for delivery to Scotland (it's Mainland UK, guys!).
Materials are thin and flimsy. Guide holes are poorly aligned. Wood split in several places when screwing together. Instructions are hard to follow.
It was unclear on purchase that the 'roof' is made of some cheap-feeling plastic, not wood. We should have read the small print. Our confidence in it is very low.
The finished item feels shoddy, with misaligned sections and gaps. It seems barely weatherproof, and I'm concerned for hens' welfare come winter. If it lasts half as long as its 2-year warranty I'll be surprised.
We felt obliged to reinforce the weedy legs and various doubtful joints by adding our own metal brackets. Not every buyer is going to have this sort of thing to hand, or the confidence to add their own hardware to what's provided.
The design is very poor.
For starters the 4ft coop is tiny inside, our two bantams and one big hen are ok but I imagine more birds than this would be pushing the limits of living space. And the nesting boxes are frankly for pigeons: I can't see an average sized hen getting in them. But at least the chooks will be huddling together - they will need to, to combat the inevitable draughts.
The pivoting 'roof' is held on with just two cheapo screws: I added my own washers to try to ensure it'll keep working once the thin wood sides inevitably warp. Who ever heard of a wood screw being used as a vital hinge, a part that you are going to open and close daily?! Given the leverage on the thin wood frame it's going to be interesting to see how long this optimistic arrangement lasts.
The roof pitch is inadequate to ensure rain runoff, so we modified the build to raise the front lip of the coop by adding our own wood strip. The two terribly shoddy plastic clips supplied to hold the roof at an angle are simply inadequate. If you don't perform your own modification and addition to the design, it is unclear how the coop is supposed to keep the rain out, long term. Just as unclear is what to do to prevent the lid (I hesitate to call it a roof) from simply lifting open in a high wind. Once open, it would inevitably tear from its hinges. No catch is provided to secure the front of the lid, so we are trying to devise our own. This is a daft oversight on the part of the manufacturers.
The sliding floor tray should help make cleaning easier. However it's very loose in its slot and only held in with two of those crappy plastic toggles. A determined fox or badger could very well push the floor aside far enough to get a snout in. To prevent this from happening we had to add our own stoppers to the rear of the coop, and additional plastic toggles on the front side (which you do want to be able to slide out as intended).
We really wanted to like this product because Home and Roost seem like a great bunch of folks. And we would love to support British manufacturing. But the quality of this chicken coop is indistinguishable from imported tat. If this is the standard of something proudly British made then I despair.