What type of insulated garden room do you want and what do you want it for?
Seems like a fairly easy couple of questions to answer? They are, but the answers could lead you down an undesirable path. If you haven't really thought about your answer, you may end up in you not having the building you make the most use of. Or even not using it for the real reason you wanted it to start with. One person's insulated garden room may be totally different to another's. If you want a gym, for instance, you probably won't want (or need) it to be a building with a high degree of insulation. Whereas a full time garden office that you would be sitting still for long periods of time is definitely at the other end of the scale.
If you get it wrong (ie, you don't insulate it enough for what you need it for), in the worst case scenario, it could end up being a very expensive garden storage shed. You wouldn't want to be in it if it's too cold cold in the winter. We have heard this a number of times from customers who are moving to a new house, want a new building and have learnt from experience.
There's a diverse range of Garden Rooms out there - choose wisely!
The cheapest option for insulated garden rooms is an insulated garden shed. It's not as fancy as a garden office but it can serve a purpose. Depending on what that purpose is of course - it's not the ideal building to meet your clients in! But if you want a practical cheap garden room that has insulation, and that you can work in all year round, then this could well be the option for you.
The next option up the scale for a cheap garden room is a summer house. It looks a lot nicer than a garden shed and has more glazing (so it's a nicer space inside).
However, most standard garden summerhouses do not have double glazing as standard. Given there is a lot of glass in a summerhouse, this can be a problem. Double glazing is essential if you intend to be comfortably warm all year round. An "insulated garden room" may have insulated roof, walls and floor. But if you have lots of single glazed windows and doors they'll let all of the heat back out again!
In essence, a summerhouse is a pretty shed as they share the same raw materials.
The main benefit of a summer house is that it looks great as a feature building in your garden. Therefore it feels more like a garden room you'll want to spend time in rather than a shed. It's just much nicer to work in, even if not the warmest building in the world. There's nothing wrong with that if it serves the purpose you want it for.
However, our Easibuild Garden Workshops could easily serve this purpose.
They have 70mm thick framing which therefore means that they can house 70mm thick insulation in the walls as well. This is then easily warm enough to use as a garden office a gym or workroom.
All of our "Easibuild" garden buildings have Tanalith treatment applied (known as "Tanalising") as standard to ensure a long life. NB - most sheds or garden workshops do not come with a factory treatment as standard.
These 2 models are variations on a theme. Both have lots of glass (you tell us how much glass you want in your building, and at what specification). The summer house looks more like the traditional garden chalet that has been the staple for British gardens for decades.
The Garde Room is a much more contemporary design with full height glass and a pent roof. Both models have a fully flexible design, so feel free to tell us what changes to make.
All Easibuilds are made to order and made to measure (to the nearest millimetre!). So changing any design aspect will not add a fortune to the cost, in fact sometimes it makes it cheaper. You even have a choice of cladding materials (shiplap, rebated featheredge, loglap, vertical tongue & groove boarding, and more)
Our Easibuild system is the most flexible modular garden building manufacturing system available. Our system dictates build method and structure rather than what they look like.
Consequently, you have total control over the aesthetics of the building. As with our other designs, you can choose the size, design and shape. You can also choose from timber, uPVC or aluminium windows and doors. We really do supply the most flexible garden buildings on the market.
Insulated Log Cabins
Yes, log cabins are naturally warmer than a framed building due to the thickness of the walls. But given that warm air rises and that standard log cabins only have 18mm roof and floor boards, the heat would just go out through the roof. And the floor is cold, especially if it's on top of a (cold) concrete base. We offer choices of insulation material. The cheapest option is fibreglass loft roll (the stuff you usually see in house lofts). However this is by no means the best insulator. Solid board polyisocyanurate insulation is approximately 3 times more efficient and is works far better in the summer to keep the inside of the building cooler as well. This type of insulation is more commonly known by brand names - Kingspan, Celotex, Xtratherm, etc)
We do offer a roof & floor insulation kit for our single skin cabins. This greatly increases the thermal performance of the building. But even a 70mm thick walled log cabin with our roof & floor insulation kit (which is thicker than virtually all insulation kits offered by other companies) only brings it up to the equivalent warmth of a 1970's house (at best).
That's fine for a lot of uses, but still uses a lot of energy to heat it throughout the depths of winter. This thermal value means that heat "leeches" out of the building faster than you would want. Therefore your heater will cut in and out on a regular basis, mirrored by the temperature inside the building. When the internal temperature constantly "yo-yos", you end up with cold hands and feet. So this isn't really ideal for an actual full time home office (ie, if you work from home).
This is why we offer the fullest range of Twin Skin log cabins. No other company offers the same range that we do. We offer everything from 28+28mm with a 50mm wall cavity right up to the ultimate insulated garden room - a 70+70mm with a 110mm insulation cavity! Our 45+45mm Twinskin with a 110mm insulated cavity fully complies with the recently updated June 2022 UK Building Regulations for habitation. Combined with full UK Building Regulations compliance for living accommodation. This means that you can legally live in one of our insulated log cabins as an annexe (if you get the correct planning permission of course).
Custom built Garden Rooms can really vary wildly in price for what seems like identical specifications. And most of the time you would be correct in thinking they are pretty much the same building. Usually it's as simple as different companies apply different profit margins!.
The only way to gauge exactly what you can get for your money is by talking to a specialist. Hortons can soon identify why one may be cheaper than another. Quite often it is a simple as a shed being hyped up to be a fantastic all singing, all dancing garden room. No, it's just a cheap insulated shed with a few twiddly bits added for effect! Our "standard" garden buildings are all made to order. So whether you describe them as custom, bespoke or made to measure - it's all the same as far as we're concerned! Our Easibuilds are high spec to start with. So adding a few optional extras (ie, insulation kit) could easily get you your perfect insulated garden room.
There is always the option of a multi-room garden room. Rather than having 1 buildings that don't necessarily match, why not have 1 building and divide it into different rooms? Don't forget - we can make any any to any size and design. It is quite common for us to build a garden office with a side store for example. You can insuate 1 room for an office etc and leave the other uninsualted if it's just for storage. The end result looks great and makes the most out of the space you have. 2 buildings take up more space than 1 large building divided into 2 rooms.
What Garden Room design do you want? Don't settle for what a company sells as standard! Get the building YOU want
At Hortons, our first question is "what you would like?".
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Sometimes this may not be practical, and if so then we will tell you, explain why and offer alternative solutions.
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Sometimes there is an almost identical building BUT it is a lot cheaper, again we will tell you.
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Sometimes what you want will "push the boundaries" of planning rules, guess what - we will tell you! You then have the option of applying for planning permission or we will offer alternative solutions.
We are not a "hard sell" company - quite the opposite, even if it means we don't sell a building. There are so many occasions when a customer comes in having spoken with other companies. These companies promise the earth and end up either letting the customer down with what they can actually offer. Or even worse, lying in order to make a sale. When we tell planning laws as they are, quite often faces drop quickly. Followed by "well, nobody else has told us that!"….There's only one reason they are economic with the truth. Once they have sold the building and got their money, it's your problem! If there is a visit from the planners, then that's your fault for not checking harder.
Come to us and you will know how you could achieve the building you want. At a price you can afford. And within the rules and regulations.
Our garden buildings come as ready to build kits if you want to install it yourself. But we do of course also offer an installation service (and a base work service as well).
As you can see, there are a myriad of choices of insulated garden rooms out there. Anything from cheap garden rooms up to a mini mansion that you can live in.
See lots of videos and information about these and similar garden rooms on our social media platforms - 
Talk to Hortons to find out what is best for you.
