Working at home / Garden Office - NLC

[Stevo9]

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

[jen]

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

[j2 lot]

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.

[mainsy]

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.

[r055]

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

[bertieduff]

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....

[tut]

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

[jen]

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.

[max1966]

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.

[whaleys]

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/

[Doc883]

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).

[Stevo9]

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!!