DIY Garden Rooms
If you are thinking of installing a home office or garden room but are wanting to save some pennies and flex those DIY muscles, our DIY, self-build option might be just the thing for you!
Our self-build garden rooms are roughly half the price of our fully-assembled garden rooms and are still built to the exact same high spec. If you are happy to put in a few days work or know a local contractor who will take care of the assembly these are a great option. Feel free to read on below or click on to our ‘Online Store’ for a stress—free purchase.
How Do I Order My DIY Garden Room?
Click through to our ‘Online Store’ and select the style and size garden room you would like. You then select your desired finish including optional extras such as; under-floor heating, double-doors, composite cladding, the list goes on. Once you are happy with your selection you will then be re-directed to our secure 3rd party payment page, where you can pay your 50% deposit via credit/debit card. You are always welcome to drop us a call email to go through any options before you are ready to purchase as we appreciate your garden room is a big investment.
Once you have booked in your garden room we will get your mock-elevations drawn up and an order summary sent over for you to check and confirm along with your provisional delivery date. We will keep in touch leading up to your delivery and confirm your date once we get nearer the date and we can get an accurate ETA booked in.
If you have any modification you would like to make between your order date and delivery date feel free to touch base with us and we can accommodate most things. Also if you have any concerns around your access please touch-base prior to ordering and we can get prepared prior to delivery. Whether this means we have to build your garden room in smaller panels, arrange a Hiab delivery etc, there’s nearly always a way around an awkward access.
All our garden rooms are built in panels so self-builds follow the exact same construction format as our fully-assembled. First we build the panels out of strength-graded timber, we then insulate the panels with thermo-foil which doubles up as a vapour-barrier. All the wall panels are then clad in 20mm FSC-certified vertical softwood-cladding (or composite or cedar cladding if you so wish). The roof is lined with 11mm sterling OSB and the base panel is wrapped in DPM.
We then under-take a mock assembly of each garden room. This is where the the PVCu window & door-frames are installed, siliconed & beaded.
We then dismantle your garden room into panels which are then loaded up in to one of our loloader luton vans, along with your additional materials and delivered to your door.
Our guys will be happy to unload your panels and materials into your garden ready for you to assemble at your leisure. There are some restrictions to this, please see F&Q’s page for clarification.
What are the exterior cladding options?
We offer three standard cladding options, shown above.
As standard all our garden rooms come clad in 20mm vertical softwood cladding, this can then stained in your choice of colour post-assembly. We also offer maintenance-free composite cladding in four colour options along with Western Red Cedar cladding, both of these are subject to a price up-lift which is dependent on the size garden room you choose and how many elevations you would like clad in it. If this is of interest to you just send us an email and we will send over an itemised quote
Interior Wall Finish:
Our self-assembly & shell-assembly garden rooms are delivered with the exterior wrapped & clad & the interior left open ready for your to run electrics & fit the supplied insulation. The pictures above show the garden rooms post shell assembly, before & after 1st-fix electrics & insulation. It is then up to you whether you would like to plasterboard & plaster your garden room or clad it in your choice of internal cladding. The majority of customers go with the board & plaster option, see pictures below:
What Electrics Are Included?
With the self-assembly garden rooms you will want to bring in a local electrician to undertake your 1st-fix & 2nd-fix electrics…Unless you’re lucky enough to have a family member or friend who is a sparky or you are competent to undertake this yourself.
As standard we would advise the following to get the most out of your garden room:
-2-way metal consumer unit complete with Main switch & MCB’s
-Interior LED lighting of choice (downlights are ideal)
-2 x Exterior up & down lighting of choice
-4 x Exterior roof over-hang brushed chrome down-lights
-5 x Black nickel double sockets
-1 x Black nickel 2g light switch
If you need any guidance on this please feel free to ask.
PVCu Windows & Doors:
All our garden rooms come with A-rated double-glazed, Argon-filled, insurer-approved PVCu-framed windows and doors. As standard we supply black wood-grain effect exterior, white interior. However you are welcome to choose any frame colour as seen below, just drop us a message and we can confirm if there would be an additional charge:
The Assembly
Prior to your garden room delivery you will be emailed step-by-step writted assembly instructions. This will take you through each stage of your assembly.
If you need any additional guidance along the way we are only a phone-call away.
The garden room panel assembly is a two-person job. Three people will make it that little bit easier again. Once the panels are fixed in position, the window-panes are in and the roofing membrane laid the rest can be finished by one person.
A competent DIY-er can take the gardenroom assembly from start to finish but you will need to bring in a fully-qualified electrician to install your first and second fix electrics, connect your studio up and sign-off the connection. If you’re lucky enough to have an electrician friend/family member great, if not you can expect to pay roughly £600-£900 depending on where you are located in the county.
What Does My Garden Room Need To Sit On?
There are several options for foundations. The first being a 4” thick poured concrete base. You want the base to be a little over-sized to allow a few cm perimeter around your garden room base. The second option is flat, level, well laid pavias. The third option is a concrete-plinth system that is available through us as an optional extra, see image below:
It is possible to assemble your garden room onto a timber decking base, however due to the weight of the studio you will want the timber decking frame to be in very good condition, with the timber posts well-protected from the weather. Remember these garden rooms are designed to have a 20+ year life-span, so you want to make sure you can say the same for the base. If you need any guidance with your base just drop us an email.
Is A Self-Assembly Garden Room Suitable for Year-Round Use?
All our garden rooms are designed to be used year-round. To ensure this we double-insulate our studios with thermo-foil and internally insulate our panels with 50mm sheeps-wool insulation. This ensures a very comfortable working environment, a lot of customers to date have used their garden rooms as self-contained accommodation.
We also offer insulation up-grades if you need your garden room to meet building-regs. stringent insulation values, just drop us an email for a quote.
We are often asked the best way to heat a garden room, we offer under-floor heating kits however one of the best ways to heat your studio with a small out-lay is a thermostat-controlled electric panel heater.
We highly recommend ‘Warme’ heaters as their products are great and their customer service is second to none - I should say we have no relationship with them we just really like their products. Your garden room will warm up within 10 minutes and hold the heat very well.