How should a UK Garden Room be built?

Introduction

We think, “how should a U.K summerhouse / garden room be built” is such an important question to ask- and why is that?

Well, here’s three reasons why

Some summerhouses are simply not designed for use in our climate

So, let’s say we are browsing to purchase a new summerhouse, and a website seems to be offering super cheap deals on summerhouses, well, that’s great right? No one want to be paying over the odds to have a summerhouse built.

Well, that’s true, you should pay a fair price, however, here’s the thing, some shoppers are comparing apples with pears when purchasing a summerhouse- and what do we mean by that?

Well, even though summerhouses can all look rather similar when buying a summerhouse online, the quality can vary massively. One summerhouse may only cost, for example 3k, yet one building which looks rather similar, may be offered by another business for 28k- so why such a huge price difference?

Well, it often comes down to the quality of the construction, some flat pack summerhouses may be made from pine, with a low-quality roof, complete with flimsy doors. And this building may last longer in a warm, dry climate- yet here in Britain, after a few winters, or sometimes even the first winter all sorts of problems may start to occur.

The exterior walls, may become water stained, making the summerhouse look damaged, the walls may have little or no wall insulation, so cold air blasts through the walls, the roof may be made from cheap, thin tar felt roofing that peels away from osb board, and water leaks may start to drip inside the summerhouse.

So these buildings may last longer in warmer climates, yet because here in Britain we see so much rain every year, and its cold during our winters, well if the buildings not well built, its simply going to be cold, wet and damp in a short amount of time, so even if the buildings say 3k, it may be a place where you don’t want to spend anytime at all, so you may deem that outlay of money, as wasted money, that you may later wish had gone towards a more solid construction, which has quality rubber roof, good quality exterior cladding, and also insulation that’s really thick.

Here at Kingsley, we build top quality garden rooms, you may have seen one of our many vans driving around Bath, in England United Kingdom, or in the city of Bristol, that’s because every week, we are busy building top quality summerhouses, and even though our buildings are far better quality than what some other businesses build, we still have starting prices from just 18k- so you can best of both worlds, a top quality garden room built, but still have the building built at a very competitive price.

Therefore, we do think that super cheap summerhouses, well, sometimes are cheaply made, and sometimes incur water leaks, if the roof is not high quality.

You need a quality roof

We mentioned this point earlier, but its worth mentioning in some detail, that is, what often dictates how long a summerhouse lasts, is what type of roof the garden room has, and also, how well the roof has been built. On many UK houses, the house may have an extension, and a lot of builders opt to have a “rubber roof” installed on the property extension. This is because rubber roofs, if correctly built, can last a very long period of time, we think that quality rubber roofing is therefore a good option of roof when building a summerhouse.

We don’t therefore use fibreglass roofing, or tar felt roofing, as we prefer to build rubber roofing, as we think, when it’s been correctly built my highly experienced flat roofers, that rubber roofing lasts a long period of time, needs hardly no maintenance at all, other than emptying the guttering of leaves. So, it’s a great option.

So, sure, some summerhouses, they can sometimes be offered at very cheap prices sometimes, however, it very important that you purchase a quality garden room, which has a well roof.

We would recommend having a roof built, which has good quality timbers, good quality rubber roofing, and good quality plastic facias, and also guttering.

It also important to consider drainage, as some garden room companies in United Kingdom, build a garden room, with no guttering, or if there is guttering sometimes, there’s no where for the rain water to go, so important to also have drains built, or to have a large water butt, so that the water can be collected.

Quality wall insulation

When calling various garden room companies for a quote, also ask them if the garden room will be insulated?

Its very important that the room is insulated, as some cheap summerhouses, have no insulation at all. And this means that it is very cold in the room during the winter.

So, what is needed is very high quality exterior cladding, to help the rain to run off the building, then a breathable membrane needs to be fitted to the garden room, then good quality structural timbers, which are thick enough to hold up the roof, and then good quality insulation, which is made using thick foam, which is insulating foam, and then two reflective sides, and this must be cut carefully, and placed the cavity of the building. The insulating panels, needs to be put between the exterior cladding, and then placed behind the plasterboard, before the plasterboard is covered in plaster.

Sometimes some garden room companies don’t use the insulating panels, they use fibreglass, fibreglass is still good in terms of insulating a building, but for the majority of the summerhouses we build, we use panel insulation, the reason being we can cut panel insulation easy, and we can place it in between the structural timbers, and we think that panel insulation is very good at insulating summerhouses.

So how should a garden room be built?

Every garden room company you hire, offer different design garden room, for example, our company offers a range of different windows, so you might want wooden frame, you might want a aluminium frame, you might want a upvc frame? But some companies, they only allow you to pick a size garden room and sometimes, you can’t pick which roof you want, which windows you want, which doors you want, and this can mean that you end up with a garden room built some companies where you end up with a summerhouse, that you feel like you’ve compromised on what you want, because the company doesn’t offer you any options.

And why so many people call us instead to build their garden buildings, because with our company there is no compromises, the customer states exactly what they want, in terms of the cladding, the size of the building, the roof, the windows, the flooring, the colour the walls, if want decking, if they want internal walls, if they want air conditioning, the customers states what they want built, and we can be built for them

Master craftsman

What’s really important when you are calling garden companies for a quote is that they use top quality building materials, but you need master craftsman, you need joiners who build top quality wooden summerhouses. So, all of the wooden cladding is cut with precision, so that the wooden flooring looks brilliant, so that the wooden window frames and the French doors made from say a quality hardwood, are all well-built, and solid, and really good quality.

This is why we employ master craftsman, to build our summerhouses, so everything from the window frames, made of wood, to say cutting the red cedar cladding, or oak cladding or the beech cladding, all will be cut precisely and nailed to the garden room, the flooring will be well built, and all the structural timbers will be built to make the garden room, strong, and we make our garden rooms so that they last a long period of time.

The foundations must be built correctly

As any good builder will tell you, a building is only as strong as the foundations, you could build the best garden room ever made, if the foundations are weak, and don’t properly support the building, then the building might sag, and break, because part of the foundations might break, and the building then moves, and structural timbers may move, causing structural damage. This means that the building should not be used, it might become unsafe.

So, what is needed, is top quality ground screws, yet sometimes, some land, won’t be suitable for ground screws, so sometimes what is needed is a thick concrete base, made with quality concrete, and concrete needs to be top quality.

So, what we offer our customers, is to choose from a concrete base, this is more expensive to build, but it offers very solid foundation that will last very long period of time. We also recommend ground screws, but only ground screws made by some companies, as the ground screws need to be top quality.

We offer top quality ground screws, and top-quality concrete base.

Then the structural timbers

Sometimes some garden room businesses, use really thin timbers, because thin timbers are cheap to buy, however, if you have a good quality roof, then a good quality roof will be heavy, sometimes very heavy, and this roof needs to be properly supported. And what you also need to consider is snow, when snow falls, and it leaves a huge amount of snow on the roof, this means that the roof will get very heavy, plus the weight of the roof its self, so what is needed, is a strong roof, but you only have a strong roof, if it has strong timbers, or steelwork to hold it up, and we use always make our buildings strong, we do this by using good quality timbers. We don’t buy cheap timbers.

Plus, we have carpenters who built summerhouses in Cardiff, they built log cabins in Newport, they built luxury garden rooms in the Vale of Glamorgan, for example we built huge garden rooms in Cowbridge, in the Penarth Vale of Glamorgan, and also in Barry, so our joiners have built many summerhouses, so they know how to make the building strong, robust, and to last a long period of time.

This is why sometimes we are sometimes the most expensive quote, that the customer is offered, but they still pick our company, because they go see the garden rooms we have already built, they see that they are really good quality, made to last, top quality building materials, and see how happy our past customers are the building, the customer service, and also, they have the reassurance with our company that we offer a long guarantee.

And some garden room companies don’t even offer a guarantee on the work, so this is why so many people hire us instead, because we have been building the garden rooms for a very long period of time, and because every single one of our summerhouses is so well made, we can offer a long guarantee on every summerhouse that we build.

Breathable membrane

Inside a garden room, is plasterboard, and often the customer will use water based emulsion paint to paint the walls, and if breathable membrane is not used when building the summerhouse, then the room can build up a lot of condensation, and the condensation can cause damp and also black spores also form on the paint work.

So, it is really important that the garden room company use breathable membrane within the walls, when building the summerhouse, and also if there is bathroom installed, that a qualified electrician, installs an extractor fan within the bathroom, especially if you are going to have a shower fitted in the bathroom as well, because otherwise condensation will build up very quickly, and damage the plasterboard, and cause damp issues within the summerhouse.

Quality exterior cladding should be fitted

Here in U.K we have so much wet weather, during the winter, it can sometimes rain every day, and this why you don’t want to buy summerhouse, made of wood, which absorbs moisture, and this makes a damp summerhouse.

What you want is exterior cladding fitted, whether it is made of steel, composite, softwood, hardwood, and what is important is if it’s made from wood, that is correctly varnished, painted or sealed, to stop the rain water from absorbing into the wood, and causing the summerhouse to become damp.

Because so people buy cheap summerhouses, and the wood is sometimes made of a softwood, like pine, which is fine, but sometimes the wood not painted, its not varnished and sometimes its not sealed, so it rains the wood gets wet, and this water is held in the wood, and it will start to rot the wood, and moisture will seep into the room, causing damp, causing a bad damp smell, and causing the plasterboard to have black spores, and this means that the room is damp, and therefore not good for your health, and also because the wood is wet, it will mean that the wood will start to get wood rot, and possibly wood worm, which means that the building might become unsafe and need demolishing.