Garden Rooms - What Can You Have?

I Need A Place to Work From Home

For many people, the concept of working from home has increased massively over the last few years and yes, we all know why. However, it didn't mean that we all had a convenient home office or spare room we could use. Even if we did, working in the family home, especially in the school holidays with the nippers playing in the house is very distracting. Can you all remember that live BBC News interview where the poor guy on the video call got interrupted by his child?

An Insulted Garden Room

The ideal solution is to get an insulated garden room, a place you can use as an office and get complete separation from your home and work life. Your commute is easy at least too. You need to be able to use this room all year round so the build quality is vital, which you don't have to worry about with Cosy Garden Rooms building method. The design also matters too though. Whether you have a smaller garden so need a small garden office that only has the space you need to work in or something larger. Maybe you want a bit of space for the gym equipment or if that is not your thing, how about an entertaining space with a bar? Before you get carried away though, are you just allowed to build a garden room in your garden?

Permitted Development Rights

First of all, do you have PDR (Permitted Development Rights) on your property? This is not something that we can answer, but most people do. Unless you have a label associated with your property, you most likely do have PDR. So what do I mean by a label? It might be that you live in a conservation area or area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB). You could be in a listed property or be in a National Park region. Your PDR could have been revoked because of other work you had done on the property. However, if you just have a normal house with a garden then chances are you are OK, but if you want to be sure, you might need to contact your local authority to check. All councils are different in how they interpret the rules, so there is no one answer to PDR.

I Have Permitted Development Rights, So Now What?

There are rules for outbuildings and other extensions to your property.

50% Of Your Garden

You are only allowed to cover up to 50% of your garden space (anything to the sides and rear of the property) with extensions or garden buildings. Unless you have had a massive extension and don't have much garden, it is very rare that this rule ever applies.

2.5m, 3m or 4m Tall Building

Many of the rules are to do with building regulations and not planning permission. If your building is within 2m of the boundary with your neighbours, then you are only allowed 2.5m external height on a pent roof or 3m with an apex as long as the eaves are under 2.5m. If you are fortunate enough to have a larger garden and can afford a 2m or more gap, then you are allowed to go to 3m on a pent roof structure and 4m with an apex roof.

Up To 15m2 or 30m2 Of Internal Space

If you need to position your building close to your boundary, within 1m, then you are restricted to 15m2 of internal space. If you want to go bigger than this, up to 30m2 internal space, then you need at least 1m distance from any boundary. There are ways around this because the rule is to do with primarily combustible building materials, wood in other words. We do have alternative building methods that include metal frames and non-combustible exterior cladding options that would allow you to build closer to your boundary up to that 30m2 internal size.

Planning Permission

So what if you do have "a label" associated with your property or you do need a tall building but cannot be 2m off your boundary. It's not the end, it just might be that you need to apply for planning permission. This is not as difficult as it can be for a house extension or other works and so not difficult to do. How long it takes depends on your local authority, some are great, some not so great. So your project may take a little longer before you have the confidence to place your Cosy Garden Room order, but at least you still have your garden room.

Free Consultation

If you are ready to consider a garden room, the best thing is to contact us at Cosy Garden Rooms on our website or here on LinkedIn. We can talk to you about your property, work out what you are allowed to do and work with you on the concept to design. This is a free service we offer and you'll pay nothing until you decide that Cosy Garden Rooms are the company you want to engage with, to build your insulated garden room.