Cost of putting in a garden office

[BuffaloCauliflower]

Would anyone who’s put in a fully wired and insulated garden office recently be able to let me know what it cost? We’re currently looking to buy a house and think we need 4 bedrooms (2 kids already and DH permanently a home worker) but wondered if we could consider 3 beds with gardens big enough to put an office in in a few years. Kids are little and fine to share a bedroom for the meantime so could give us more options as were already quite stretched as first time buyers.

I haven't had one built but started looking into this when I started wfh and I decided to put a desk in my bedroom as I couldn't justify spending thousands of pounds to go to work! I think depending on size I was looking at £6-8,000. I saw a few nice ones on Dunster Homes which are insulated but don't know what the company are like to comment.

The ones where they do everything I m being quoted 25-30k !

This is for 4.5 m X 3.5m

I m getting the foundations done separately (3.4k Inc a nice path down to it ) , flat packed from dunster 8.8k which we ll try and assemble ourselves and still need to speak to the electrician guessing 2k Inc running the cable down

It's not a cheap thing to do .

I've been really looking into this for the exact same reason!! 3 kids and want the space, a 5 bed house was too £££ so been looking at 4 beds with big gardens.

Similar to the others a really good size one around 7k go all out singing and dancing with a living roof for £10 k

Wow surprised by these responses!

we are doing one at this very moment. dunster house fully insulated - about £3300 for 3.2 x 4m

we’ve got the space measured out and it’s plenty big enough for an office and exercise bike so no idea why you’d need bigger.

the base/ hard standing guy is charging £600 for clearing the area/ compacted limestone/ paving slabs (including materials) AND building the thing.

electrics less than £100 to run a spur off the garage.

Think it's a how long is a piece of string one... We have just booked ours in- it's a very good size, 2 rooms, lots of doors/ windows for light and it's going to be about 10k for everything apart from electric- they are doing the extra prep work/ clearing (the plot of land that is) and some necessary bespoke finishing work (an additional small wall) so we thought it was quite reasonable as we could not face putting it up ourselves. We will have to paint and do the electric, maybe guttering. Using a local and reputable company so if anything goes wrong we can go into the showroom!

I know you can save a huge fortune doing them yourself!

We have a garden office, 4x3 mtr sq. our was installed just over a year ago, fully insulated, double glazed with solar glass, cabled up data & power, downlighters. Rubber roof. Painted inside and out. Concrete base. £12,000 for the building fully installed, base was just over £1000. Electrics to run up armoured cable and data cabling £700. Would be more now, wood, paint, concrete more expensive now. Best money we ever spent.

Thanks all this is really helpful.

3m x 5m. Double glazed, insulated, WiFi, porch, etc. £20K.

I built mine this summer just gone for about 7k all in which included clearing the site, foundations and then all the materials and the such. Only thing I couldn’t do was electrics due to regs, and that bit was £780 for small consumer unit and 4 x sockets, 7 x down lights inside and 3 x Sofit lights. I have done it to a high spec - cedar wood for the front, aluminium bifold, 100mm PIR insulated, smart lights, composite decking and the internet out there. Size is about 4.5m x 3m.

You get what you pay for. I can guarantee you posters above saying they’ve just spent £3800 On a dunster house fully installed don’t have something that is high specced. You’d be lucky to get insulation at that price point let alone the electrics run and if you need foundations and site clearance. My bifold door was 2k alone. Equivalent price for what I built is about £25k. If you’re a bit handy then there are some great YouTube videos and it’s really not a massively complex project. Needed to buy a pro nail gun but otherwise all pretty straight forward tools.

To give an answer to your question, a high spec garden room at 4.5 x 3m, materials only cost was in the region of 7k. You then add on from there depending on what labour is, how much prep work is needed, if the site needs clearing and so on. If you want year round use you need decent insulation and the cheaper options aren’t going to give you that.

3m x 5m structure being installed next month. 2/3 office, 1/3 storage. £34k all in for everything - foundations, structure, electrics, glazing, paving, insulating etc. In London. This was the cheaper of the two quotes we received. We wouldn’t have a hope in hell of doing any sort of DIY job! Time and skills severely lacking!

I’m planning to build my own and materials are coming at about £5k, excluding foundation, doors/windows and electrics. I’m looking to source doors and windows second hand to make it a bit cheaper. Due to injury I’m currently out of action so have looked at a local company that does similar and I’d be looking at around £12-13k for a 2.5x3.5m, which slightly smaller than the one I’d be building myself.

We've got a hully pod. Plug it in like a caravan.

£4,000. Insulated. Still cold in winter though.

https://hullypods.com/?utmsource=google&utmmmedium=cpc&utmcampaign=20438671345&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkMKyuaSjgQMVFUBBAh0RYgJJEAAYASAAEgIbIPDDBwE

@Roselilly36 was yours installed by a company at that price?

Getting ready for ours.
2.5x2.5m.
Patio doors, base, composite room, electrics etc.
just under £20k 😩

We’ve had quotes recently - from £6k to self build an insulated one from a kit through to £30k for one with air con etc
As we don’t envisage needing it for decades we aren’t going for the higher end of the budget..

Around 20k, 7m x 5m, double glazed, WiFi, heating, electrics and a shower room. Works as an everything space, wfh, gym, hangout space, party room, and for occasional overnight guests it's amazjng

About £17-18k a year ago in SW London. £14k for 8x10ft building, just over £1k for clearing the area + concrete base laid, £2k to do the electrics including laying a cable through the house and installing a small heater. I keep DH and his bikes in there.

@BuffaloCauliflower yes we used a firm called Superior Garden Buildings, based in East Anglia, they can build to any size, design, lots of choices of paint, lots of buildings to see in there show ground. Their pricing is per sq mtr and fully installed & painted. Very professional, would recommend. We did look at ordering online, but as the time, 2021, they were huge delays in ordering garden offices, and we wanted to see what we were actually buying, we did go to Notcutts and looked as building there too, but they looked poor quality, windows & doors not shutting properly (could have been due to the base) but we decided to pay for quality. So pleased with ours.

eek two years ago ours was installed. Make sure if you need to use the building all year round it is insulated and double skinned. Our office retains heat well in winter. We had carpets tiles put in ours rather than laminate floor, as ours is used for an office, office chairs on laminate can be dangerous. 3 of us work in there, nicest office we have ever had.

Can I ask what brand yours is @Roselilly36 ?

There are loads of these threads. Ours is from Booths 8ft x 12ft and was 11k. another 500quid for the electric/wifi cable. No base required or any of that.

It is marvellous, though I should have shelled out for the inbuilt blinds.

@Nyancat ,
Could you share some details on the vendor you have used please?

Ours was 30k for the full insulated 3x5 m one from Garden Retreats, really great company based in Bicester - well worth visiting the showroom if you're near. We love it, so nice to work from, and especially if there's young children in the main house. We have teenagers so it serves as a great second lounge too- you'll be at that stage before you know it and need more separated living spaces.

I like the look of those Holly pods @CaptainSeven - sadly though I don't think they'd be able to deliver one to us as the access isn't wide enough. I guess they can't go in through the front door then out the back to the garden.