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Sheds are produced in many different materials including wood, metal, and plastic. Most manufactures, like Lifetime Products, will make sheds out of one of these materials. Other manufacturers, such as Duramax, make sheds out of a couple of the materials. In many cases, the intended use and location you have for your outdoor storage shed will determine which material you should have for your shed. We will explore the differences and appropriate uses for sheds made with plastic and metal.

Over time, all backboards will wear out. When the time comes, a knee-jerk reaction might be to throw out the old system and look to purchase a whole new system. While, in some cases, this might be necessary, many times you can save considerable amounts of money by simply replacing the backboard of the in ground basketball goal. Lifetime Products makes many of their systems with component backboards that can be purchased retail, rather than replacing the entire goal. Here is the way to determine if your basketball system has a backboard that can be replaced.

Thee pole of the basketball system is an important part for obvious reasons; the most obvious reason being it holds the backboard and mounting hardware in position. However, there are also less obvious reasons that might escape some people. With most manufacturers, they will have a series of basketball goal offerings that will increase in quality and size. Thus, the poles of their systems will also differ in quality and size. Other manufacturers will offer basketball poles in only 1 shape, but differ in sizes. We will explore these options in this part of the basketball hoop purchasing guide.

To start off this section, we should note that a regulation backboard is 72 inches wide and 42 inches high. Most basketball systems, however, do not have this large of a backboard. There are a large number of mini basketball hoops available, which we will not consider. We will consider basketball hoops made by Lifetime Products, Spalding, Huffy, Goalsetter, and Goalrilla product offerings that have systems that can have the rim reach 10 feet. In this group of available basketball systems, backboards widths can be as small as 44 inches wide and as big as a regulation-sized backboard. Here are some more details for each size group.

Most basketball hoop purchases provide an excellent upgrade to your home, or at least provide a long lasting product that can provide many years of use. Thus, most basketball hoop manufacturers provide product warranties for their items. They understand that you are wanting the system to last a long time while your family grows up. However, just about every manufacturers' warranty is different, sometimes even from the same manufacturer. We will discuss these here.

Lifetime Products

Lifetime Products has two separate basketball hoop lines they make. Each group is essentially universal in warranty length and coverage. The low-end systems carry a 5 year warranty; the high end has a limited lifetime warranty. These warranties deal with defects in workmanship and materials - which essentially means they are guaranteeing parts of the system for the specified period of time until things give out due to normal wear and tear. What is normal wear and tear and what is not normal wear and tear is entirely up to Lifetime to decide. The only exception to these warranty generalities is with any system that has a glass backboard. In the low end, the currently amounts to 1 system. In the high-end, that covers currently 5 different systems. This difference is this, the glass backboard material is not warrantied.

Nearly every basketball hoop manufacturer has a height adjustment mechanism of some sort. These height adjustment mechanisms can be as simple as a turn crank, or has complicated as a pneumatic piston lift. This post will discuss the different options available from each of the major manufacturers.

As part of your purchasing research for a basketball system you will inevitably run into the question of what backboard material is best. This question is not lost on either low-end or high-end basketball system purchases. So, we will address this questions here. Different manufacturers building basketball backboards with different materials; many manufacturers build systems with with multiple types of backboard materials depending on the system. Typically, your options for backboard material will include polyethylene plastic (or similar plastic material), polycarbonate, acrylic, and tempered glass. These backboard materials have many different suppliers and purposes. We will look at them one at a time.

While this is the first topic we will cover in the basketball hoop purchasing guide series, this is not necessarily the place you need to start with your shopping. The maker of the basketball hoop you are interested in just makes for a great logical sequence to proceed through to discuss the ins and outs of buying an appropriate basketball system for your home or organization. Each basketball hoop manufacturer, if successful, tends to target a particular market segment to fit the needs of a market segment better than anyone else. Thus, if you are wanting a high-end hoop, do not expect to find great options from low-end producers, and vise versa. The following list of common basketball hoop makers will help you sort who caters to your particular needs.

This post is to announce our basketball hoop buying guide that will be presented over several blog posts for the purpose of helping you decide on the best product solution for your basketball system needs. These articles will go through every detail we can think of that will affect your buying decision. We will discuss manufacturers of basketball systems, backboard size, backboard material, in ground vs. portable, wall-mounted systems, warranties, shipping, assembly, etc. Come back and visit us soon for our first buying guide articles.

Basketball hoops have many different features that help prolong the life of the system. For instance, most basketball hoop manufacturers provide some sort of protective covering on metal parts to prevent rusting. However, there are still some things you can do to help your basketball hoop last as long as possible. Here are some suggestions. Make sure you always follow instructions and maintenance requirements set forth by the manufacturer.