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Advice on putting in Summerhouse to use as an office?

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Hi All, I'm looking for some advice on putting in a summerhouse/cabin as an office. I need to work from home for at least the next 12 months or so and we don't have the room for me to do it properly (I write music for a living so have quite a bit of kit). I've looked at building an office in the back of our garden and we could put a pre-made summerhouse/shed of about 10' x 14' in quite cheaply. One of these looks good and they are very well rated on google and ebay:  https://noahgardenrooms.co.uk/product/don-morris-workshop/

 

But I've seen some talk about issues with them being too hot/too cold and not waterproof. I was assuming I'd need to insulate is which doesn't look like a huge job. But am I still mad at thinking I could work from it? Any other issues I need to consider? I know I can get a 'proper' insulated garden room but for my size they start at around £8k which we just don't have and we are renting so it's a lot of money to invest that we don't get back.

 

Any advice or experience with this would be appreciated.


Comments

  • sniffydog
    sniffydog Posts: 13 Forumite
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    Bump! Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? 
  • Doozergirl
    Doozergirl Posts: 34,076 Forumite
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    edited 1 June 2020 at 11:03AM
    Insulation, insulation, insulation. Walls, floor and roof.  

    You will also need a ventilation gap behind the (solid) insulation as it's wood.  It needs to breathe so you don't get condensation behind.  

    So yes, it could be done but you need to consider how, because there is extra expense in essentially building another box inside your box, insulating it and then considering how it looks internally when it's finished... 

    What is it going to sit on, too.  

    Everything that is supposed to be in heaven is already here on earth.
  • Mutton_Geoff
    Mutton_Geoff Posts: 4,021 Forumite
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    Power for heat/light? Does your music work involve playing it at a volume that might bother neighbours? What will the landlord say? What will you do with it when you move out? What would you do if the landlord served notice as soon as it was built?
    Signature on holiday for two weeks
  • stragglebod
    stragglebod Posts: 1,324 Forumite
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    And will you be storing expensive stuff in there? Will your insurance cover it?
  • TELLIT01
    TELLIT01 Posts: 18,019 Forumite
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    Has your landlord given permission for you to put the building up?  Will the landlord allow you to extend power to the building?  Extension cables are not a good idea from the main house to the outbuilding. 
    Insulation is going to be the major issue.  It will take more than a couple of inches in the walls to make the place usable, and damp free in the winter months.
  • Jumblebumble
    Jumblebumble Posts: 1,997 Forumite
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    edited 2 June 2020 at 2:48PM
    TELLIT01 said:
    Has your landlord given permission for you to put the building up?  Will the landlord allow you to extend power to the building?  Extension cables are not a good idea from the main house to the outbuilding. 
    Insulation is going to be the major issue.  It will take more than a couple of inches in the walls to make the place usable, and damp free in the winter months.
    Hmm
    We inherited a  10 by 8 Summerhouse 
    A friend and I insulated the inside with 50mm Kingspan and 9 mm ply on batterns
    It was nicely electrified with proper armoured cabling and lit had a PC inside that ran on home plugs and was always left on
    It stayed for 10 years and only ever needed heating on the very coldest days and there was never any damp or condensation
    After 10 years we took it down to replace with a log cabin and most of it was in good condition which killed me as it could easily have done another 10
    Too much trouble to sell but it has mostly been recycled as fencing
    The summer house probably cost £1000 and it cost me another £1000 to make it habitable
    Happy days
    The main thing is that a cheap summerhouse on a solid concrete base will last but the most expensive summerhouse on a grotty base will not.
    The landlord issue is a different story
  • sniffydog
    sniffydog Posts: 13 Forumite
    Fourth Anniversary First Post
    Thank you for the replies. Yes, the landlord is on board. It adds value to the property and there's plenty of room at the bottom of the garden. We have been renting for 5 years and he is definitely not looking to serve us notice or sell it (we've tried to buy it!).  Yes, I would need to make it secure and add it to the home insurance. Plenty of equipment there. 

    The question was really to know if insulating a cheap summerhouse would make an inhabitable office. It looks like it comes down to bubble wrap type insulation, rockwool or cavity boards. Does anybody else have any experience with any of them? 
  • Mutton_Geoff
    Mutton_Geoff Posts: 4,021 Forumite
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    sniffydog said:
    The question was really to know if insulating a cheap summerhouse would make an inhabitable office. It looks like it comes down to bubble wrap type insulation, rockwool or cavity boards. Does anybody else have any experience with any of them? 
    I've got lots of experience insulating properties for heat and sound. I've never heard of bubble wrap being used though. The main products are insulating slab inside studwork then soundboard (blue plasterboard) covering. You could use Rockwool sound insulation if acoustics are your primary goal, or insulation slab if it's heat.
    Other products are foil covered insulation like Kingspan/Celotex to fit in the cavities (make sure you cut it snugly, plan your studwork spacing to minimise cuts/wastage of the sheets). The final product is normally used for roofing but has a very high insulation value for it's thickness/weight are products like TLX Gold (multifoil insulation).
    Don't forget the floor needs insulating too, as does the window and once you've built the sealed insulated box within your shed, it needs ventilating properly to avoid damp issues (humans exhale loads of moisture).

    Signature on holiday for two weeks
  • Personally I wouldn’t bother unless you’re willing to go to the expense of having a properly insulated timber building installed. Anything else will be a glorified shed. 

    I appreciate you probably don’t want to go to this expense to build something on somebody else’s properly though so if you go for the summerhouse you may just need to accept that it won’t be usable all the time, not very secure and you may struggle to insure its contents beyond what a normal policy would cover for shed contents. 
  • FreeBear
    FreeBear Posts: 18,259 Forumite
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    Mutton_Geoff said: I've got lots of experience insulating properties for heat and sound. I've never heard of bubble wrap being used though. The main products are insulating slab inside studwork then soundboard (blue plasterboard) covering. You could use Rockwool sound insulation if acoustics are your primary goal, or insulation slab if it's heat.
    ...
     The final product is normally used for roofing but has a very high insulation value for it's thickness/weight are products like TLX Gold (multifoil insulation).
    I was going to suggest the bubblewrap insulation might have been a reference to a multifoil product like YBS SperQuilt. I did consider the stuff for insulating a room recently, but the R values of the stuff is pretty poor for the price one pays. For TLX Gold, it is 0.95 m²K/W compared to 2.25 m²K/W for 50mm thick Celotex/Kingspan - The multifoil requires an air gap 0f at least 25mm either side, so 50mm foam boards seems like a reasonable comparison.

    If the OP goes for the foam boards, a couple of tips.
    A serrated kitchen knife gives you a very clean cut when slicing the stuff up.
    Use expanding foam to seal any gaps - Invest in a foam gun and you can lay down beads very precisely.
    Tape all the joints with aluminium tape - 50mm wade tape at a minimum, 75mm is better.
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