Summer House Ideas for All Year Round Use
Discover how to use your summer house year-round with Bakers Garden Buildings. With 50 years of expertise, we provide ideas, seasonal tips, and guidelines for maximising your building.
Insulate your Garden Summer House for Year-Round Use
Insulation is key to being able to use your summer house year-round. Without insulation, your single skinned timber or composite clad summer house will leak a lot of heat, meaning it will not be cost effective to try to keep it warm during those colder months. When building an all year-round summer house, it is vital that you request insulation to be included. By using the appropriate insulation in the walls, roof and floor, you are greatly reducing the amount of potential heat loss.
Just fitting any insulation will not cut it. It is critical that you fit the correct insulation for your type of building. Without the appropriate vapour barrier or ventilation design, condensation can still form and dampness can creep into the room. Heat loss is measured using a “U value” with the lower the number the better. A typical skinned garden summer house will have a heat loss of around 3.00. By insulating your summer house, you can greatly reduce this down to around 0.5 and even further, depending on your insulation's thickness.
Once your garden summer house is insulated correctly, you can then cost effectively regulate the temperature with heating.
Install a Heating System To Keep It Warm In The Colder Seasons
Now that you have good insulation levels in your garden summer house, you can regulate the all year-round temperature with heating and even cooling options. Even with the best insulation possible, your garden summer house will still be subject to the elements and heat loss will happen during colder months. By using a small amount of electric heat, you can regulate the temperature in your summer house garden room. This will help to eradicate any condensation making a lovely space that can be used all year round.
There are two cost effective ways of heating your garden room. The first way is to use a convector heater. A convector heater will provide you with the best balance of power usage and an even heat spread within the room. If your garden room is appropriately insulated, you will only need a 2kw heater to heat a relatively large building.
The second way is to use an air source heat pump. There is a considerably higher outlay in the beginning, however, you get four times the heat from the same running cost by using these systems. As an added benefit, you can use this pump to cool the air in the summer as well. When your electrics are being fitted to your garden summer house, our recommendation would be to get the rotary isolator fitted to ensure that it is ready for an air conditioning company to fit in future. We believe this to be the most efficient way of heating your garden room.
Using your Summer House As An Extra Storage Space
If you're only using your garden summer house in the warmer months, you could consider using it for storage in winter, with the correct insulation and heating. By keeping the building above 12 degrees, you greatly reduce the chance of any materials that you store in the summer house from developing mould.
Alternatively, if you wanted to use your summer house in the winter for other purposes as well as storage, a separate storage area or cupboard should be a consideration. At Bakers Garden Buildings, we offer two types of storage sections: insulated and uninsulated. If you choose an uninsulated section, we will be able to provide you with tips for keeping your material items mould-free.
Using your Summer House As A Garden Office
With a well insulated and heated garden summer house, you can easily convert it to an office. By adding nice flooring, decorations and WiFi, you can get an amazing space to work from home on an occasional or everyday basis.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, train strikes and the focus on work-life balance, more companies are continuing to offer hybrid working. Converting your summer house to an office is a great way of keeping your work and home life separate.
In addition to our normal summer houses, Bakers have designed a dedicated selection of garden offices that feature great lining and insulation. These offices are also created to be light airy spaces with a priority of zero maintenance and a 50 year life expectancy.
Other Uses For Your Garden Summer House
As we have already seen, summer houses are not just for summer. With good insulation, lining and electrics installed there is an endless array of uses from offices and gyms to cinema rooms and bars.
Children's Sleepovers
If you remember camping in the garden as a child, then having a sleepover in an insulated garden summer house elevates this experience. With an insulated summer house, you can have the knowledge that your children are in a secure place, while having the fun of a good old fashioned sleepover. With modern day technology, you are able to monitor your children via cameras. However, we would still advise that you ensure that you have linked your main property's smoke detectors with the summer house and that a fire extinguisher is available.
Craft Area
No matter what your hobby or craft is, an all year round lined and insulated garden summer house is the perfect space to allow your creativity to run free. By combating condensation through heating and insulation, you can enjoy a warm space all year round while doing what you love.
Here at Bakers, we have a wide range of pre-designed and bespoke rooms that could accommodate anything that you're looking for so why not let us know your perfect summer house idea?
Exercise Area
Once your garden room is lined and insulated, you may want to convert it into your own personal space for exercising and gyming. With the installation of exercise mats and mirrors on the wall, you could have an amazing space free of the crowds found in a membership gym. Whether you choose to lift weights, do yoga or a full HIIT workout, you will be able to exercise for as long as you want, when you want. To suit all of your needs, Bakers have curated an array of garden buildings that would be perfect for a home gym. We can also get involved with the interior design of each to ensure it's perfect for your use.
Home Cinema / Movie Nights
For most people, having multiple uses of a summer house or garden room is the best way to justify the investment. Picture snuggling up on the sofa in winter in a well insulated, warm summer house and you have the perfect place to enjoy a great film. Along with the usual streaming platforms now available, did you know you can also add SkyQ as a great summer house accessory? Here at Bakers, we have the experience and knowledge to ensure great connectivity for your home cinema room no matter what streaming option you're looking at.
Garden Parties
The most popular uses for our summer houses are to host garden parties and other entertainment. One of our rooms is not complete without a bar and a fridge which can be used to not only make the most of warm summer evenings, but can also be enjoyed during the winter months. The list of occasions that could be celebrated is endless; from birthdays and sporting events to BBQs and the festive season.
Bakers Summer Houses
Are you ready to add an insulated summer house to your garden? No matter what type of insulated summer house you want, here at Bakers we have an array of options. From our collections of pre-designed houses to endless options of bespoke rooms, we can take your summer house idea and build it for you.
We offer a complete package service from planning advice through to the base building, painting and finishing. This means you can just enjoy the usage of your amazing Bakers garden summer house without worrying about the small things.
