How much does it cost to set up a garden office / studio?

[TheDoodler]

Hi, I can find out how much it is to buy the thing initially. I've been looking at ones for about £2000 to use as a studio / home office.

However, i can't find how much extra a base would be and if the company put it up themselves - i can't find a price for that. Obviously i can ask them but i wondered if anyone had done this and how much it cost.

Also - did you install electricity? I would need to obv (but DH can do this from our outside elec point). Has anyone had one erected then regretted it on the cold, dark nights?

I have room in my garden and wouldn't need planning permission for the size i'm looking at.

Thankyou for any advice / warnings / costings you can give me

P.S. I'm very much enjoying my shed - porn at the mo and wondered if it's all just a pipe dream...

We've just had a nice shed put in. Shed was about same cost. Base took best part of day for a couple of builders, in my case my step dad so we didn't pay, but I would think this would be about £200, then you also need enough sand, cement and we used plain concrete slabs to create base. I have no idea what these cost sorry but will ask DH later. Electricity out there - our electrician charged £120 a day and I would say took him half day but difficult to tell as he did a lot of stuff at the same time and depends on how easy it is to link it in to household supply.

I think biggest draw back of shed office is that they get very cold and damp unless properly built and insulated. Don't skimp on those bits.

Oooh wiongandprayer - thankyou for the quick answer. Any other stuff you can let me know would be fab.

The one i'm looking at is insulated but i'm an artist and do worry about the damp getting into my work. Cold not so bad i have a little leccy heater and am made of stern stuff .

sorry about the random 'o'

We have a big log cabin in the garden. You should budget £500 for the base (which should be concrete PLUS risers in wood to lift the base off the ground (for warmth/damp prevention). We did the whole slate roof shebang, insulated it and put electric radiators in. The electrics can be run off an outside point but you legally have to get a proper electrician in nowadays otherwise your insurance is not valid if it burns down etc. Prob. about £250 for a line out and a few sockets/a light.

Bear in mind you will also need to run networking cables. You can run the electrics and networking in a tube together (round trunking). If you do the erection and put the tube in yourself the costs of electrics plummet.

If you need any help, I'd be happy to offer advice - I run the Shedworking web site www.shedworking.co.uk and my book Shedworking: The Alternative Workplace Revolution has just come out which might be of some use.

i have had two home offices - the first one was a small henley office - which are really great as they are esentially prefabs but look older and are really well insulated with full electrics, etc and all you need is a base and tehn a certificated electrician to join up the wires. I used an oil filled radiator ona timer which went on for around 30 mins at 8.00am for me to start work at around 9am.

This costs about £8000 all told. Well worth it for me and oh how I wish I still had it (we moved!). You can sometimes get secondhand ones.

The second one which we have now is a log cabin style that cost about £6k and we then added underfloor heating, electircs, phone, broadband etc. It has huge main room which we have kitted up for the kids with TV, playstation etc, a small area off that which we have my dh's gym equipment in and a dedicated office which is separate and lockable. There is also a loft space which the kids use for sleepovers with old mattresses up there etc. It is a really coll space and we all use it all the time. The downside is it cost £11k all told (but this was put up in the week after we moved into a house that was much smaller than our old one and was usable from week 2 in the snow!).

My advice is, don't skimp, make sure you have really good insulation (for warmth and sound), have a sep electricity consumer unit, get a quote from supplier for all in and then get 3 quotes elsewhere (rated people are good) to do the work maybe in pieces but you need to be a good project manager). I think underfloor heating is great but an oil filled radiator is enough.

You may need planning permission but both the ones we have had didn't need it and we deliberately got ones that didn't.

Talk to your neighbours about where to site it.

Once you have decided what you need (make a list) then look through all the mags and websites - there are so many

BTW our neighbour put in a bog standrad she one weekend and then kitted it all out himself as he was good at diy. He reckons he spent £1500 all told so there is an answer for every budget!