Scottish Elises

What with the price of fuel and that, cutting down on the commute and spending a couple of days a week working at home is attractive. I'm looking at building a garden office to stop the Mrs and I driving each other up the wall! I thought it would simply be a case of putting up a shed and insulating it and there would be lots of plans on the net, but seems to be a bit more complicated/expensive than I thought.

Does anyone have any experience doing this kind of thing and how to keep the costs down?

Cheers

Stephen

Im not sure about this but you might even need planning permission to erect a work from home unit too......

Don't know who your employers are but If the home working is a formalised agreement they may want/need to carry out a formal assessment of the work station to ensure it meets (H&S ) requirements and DSE etc.

Think you will need permission to put up a shed but shouldn't be a problem. To keep it as cheap as possible, source a shed, get its dimensions, make a concrete base to sit it on, insulate it and plasterboard it add afew plugs and a carpet and hey presto. Piece of cake
Up in a weekend.

If it's a shed you won't need planning permission as it's seen as a temporary structure.
However, if you are putting power into it you will need to get a qualified sparky sign it off and give you a certificate.

If you get a shed, lining it with insulation should do.

As Keith says, if it's a formal working from home arrangement, then the company needs to ensure your 'workstation' is suitable. This includes lighting and furniture

Depending on your circumstances there can be more to this than meets the eye. I've dealt with a few similar jobs (in the architecture line), some of which have happened, and some of which have died a death due to Local Authority restrictions. Drop me a PM if you want to chat it through in more detail and I can give you some pointers....

Planning permission may not be needed at all, depends on distance from the road and whether it can be seen.

We built a huge conservatory and did not need permission for that, though I don't know if it being attached to the house makes a difference.

tut

tut wrote:Planning permission may not be needed at all, depends on distance from the road and whether it can be seen.

We built a huge conservatory and did not need permission for that, though I don't know if it being attached to the house makes a difference.

tut

It doesn't matter whether it's joined on to the house or not. Our neighbour has a conservatory and has just had to apply for planning permission to turn it into a sunroom. It has very similar dimensions, but has a normal roof instead of a glass roof....

I think it just depends on each planning office.

Area of the proposed 'shed' and its relationship to boundaries is probably the real issue, then if you formally apply for PP and BW you would need to consider a raft of other issues.

Even large sheds, >8sqm, used for storage fall foul of Building Regs, re-spread of fire, but most people don't apply so don't know where they fail to meet the Building Standards, ignorance is bliss.

Ignoring your criteria of affordable (I say this however I have no idea how much it costs, but I doubt its cheap), this is cool....

http://www.officepod.co.uk/consumers/

jen wrote:

tut wrote:Planning permission may not be needed at all, depends on distance from the road and whether it can be seen.
We built a huge conservatory and did not need permission for that, though I don't know if it being attached to the house makes a difference. tut

It doesn't matter whether it's joined on to the house or not. Our neighbour has a conservatory and has just had to apply for planning permission to turn it into a sunroom. It has very similar dimensions, but has a normal roof instead of a glass roof....I think it just depends on each planning office.

When we had our extension built (which needed planning permission) we were told that a conservatory is classified as a temporary structure and therefore does not need planning permission but I think it also depends on the size of the structure (cubic m).

Thanks for the for the advice all. As I thought! I have a call into the local planning office for some guidance. Not worth applying for PP though - best not to open that can of worms!!