What flooring for garden office?

[Walkingwounded]

Have finally bitten the bullet after a painful year of WFH and am going to have a garden office installed. It will be MY space.

Will be made of cedar wood, and installed on ground screws which allow airflow. The company are asking which flooring - tiles, laminate or something else?

I literally have no idea. Have Amtico in the house which is great but not sure it’s suitable for a garden office in north UK because of damp. Any advice appreciated!

Hopeful bump!

Bumping for you.
What have the company put down in the other garden offices they've done ?
I presume you are not their first client.
Have you friends or family who have had one put in ?
What do you prefer ?

Thankyou so much LadyEloise.

The company say it’s up to me. I would like laminate or tiles but am concerned about damp. I thought perhaps someone who knows more about these things than me might be able to help.

Could you go timber, rather than laminate. I’ve seen it used in outdoor offices, perhaps a little more forgiving in terms of damp in the air than laminate?

We went for carpet tiles. Not very glamorous but they are very hard wearing. A garden office can be very difficult acoustically, lots of hard surfaces and carpet helps dampen the echo effect and stop you sounding like your in a cave during zoom calls etc. it’s also a bit warmer. I recommend you check they are insulating the floor as well as the walls/roof as my feet were freezing till we sorted that out.

Oh that’s really useful! Thankyou both.

Will ask about floor insulation and check out carpet tiles/wood. Hadn’t even thought about the acoustics. And do loads of Zoom calls.

If not carpet tiles, maybe timber and a rug would work.

We have just had a garden office installed, we went for commercial grade carpet tiles, really pleased with them.

I have engineered wood in my kitchen, if I were to do it again I would put a good laminate down.
There isn't huge traffic in the kitchen and it hasn't worn well.
Tbh I'm not too "precious" about the floor so perhaps it's my fault.

I have carpeting in mine, the hard wearing type you get in offices. It hadn’t occurred to me to get anything else tbh, and it does the job nicely. We also insulated the building to the max

The reason we choose carpet tiles, was having had laminate in a previous home office, it was quickly destroyed with office chairs rolling over it. And yes also helps to absorb sound and draft. Yes essential to have installation if you need to use the office all year round. We also had special glass that helps stop heat entering the office in summer & leaving the office in winter, sorry I can’t remember what it is called, it has a special coating on the double glazed units.

I'm planning on wooden floor with lots of large rugs - but my space is going to be multi-purpose, with a small part as the office

I have carpet tiles :) My floor is just some rough floorboards, a layer of mdf and then the tiles and it's been fine this winter.

Have to agree with the carpet tiles, we recently had husband office redone put laminate down - the sound echoes!! So we put the carpet tiles down! Much better

We've got quickstep laminate, primarily because it can be cleaned easily as it can get a bit muddy walking down to the bottom of the garden. We've had it for 5 years and it's worn extremely well. We've got a few rugs and a sofa and I think that helps with acoustics - certainly doesn't seem particularly echoey.

This is all so useful, thanks everyone. Going to look at carpet tiles and laminate tomorrow.