“Although they may look the same, garden rooms are very different - do your homework”
Nicola de Souza
Q: Is this garden room legal?
Garden Buildings need to conform to two sets of rules.
Often confused as the same thing, they are quite different but both sets of rules are complicated.
Building Regulations oversee the methods used to build and the overall quality. A lot of companies use the fact that many types of outbuildings, like sheds, don’t need to conform to the Building Regulations to build to a lower quality. They are a minimum standard in the building industry – can you expect your garden room to meet it?
Planning Rules define the principal of what you can build and where. A part of planning legislation referred to as “permitted development” allows certain structures to be built without formal planning permission. Does what you want require formal permission?
Q: What foundations will my garden room have?
All good buildings start with good foundations.
You are investing in a room that you want to use for many years to come; you wouldn’t allow a builder to build an extension to your house without proper foundations, so why take the risk spending so much money on a garden room without them?
Q: How is Electricity Supplied?
This could, quite literally, be the life or death question and probably the most important one that you need to ask. How does your proposed garden room installer intend to ensure that your entire electrical installation is safe? which will hasten the degradation of wood.
Q: What type of floor / wall / ceiling construction
You want this room to be fully habitable with as much insulation as possible without thermal breaks.
It is fully detached and subject to the elements from all sides. Rockwool insulation, the type typically seen in lofts and cavity walls, has a much lower insulating value than solid insulation and slumps over time. The studwork and joists in a ‘stick built’ timber framed buildings form thermal bridges, and even when they use solid insulation in between, there is the risk of cold spots that can attract condensation.
Q: What type of windows and doors are going in?
Are the windows and doors made with aluminium as standard?
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