Summer House Construction

The use decides the design, so we start there:

• Summer retreat: A simple timber room for warmer months, with opening doors onto the garden.
• Garden office: Insulated, with power, lighting, data and heating, so you can work in it most of the year.
• Hobby room or studio: Good natural light, plenty of sockets and space for storage.
• Gym: A strong floor, ventilation and sockets for equipment.
• Playroom or entertaining space: Wide doors, lighting and a practical floor.

Using a summer house as a bedroom or separate living accommodation is not allowed under permitted development and needs planning permission. The general rules are explained on our conservatories and outbuildings page.

A bespoke summer house is designed around your garden rather than a catalogue size. We can build:

• To fit the space: Corner summer houses, narrow buildings for a side garden, or a size that makes the most of the plot.
• To the height limits: A flat or mono-pitch roof close to a boundary, or a pitched roof where the building is further from the boundary.
• With the timber you prefer: Pressure-treated softwood, or naturally durable timber such as cedar for cladding.
• With the cladding you like: Shiplap, tongue and groove, or log-style profiles.
• With the roof you want: Felt shingles, a rubber EPDM membrane, or cedar shingles.
• With the glazing you need: Double-glazed windows and doors with safety glass, and roof windows for extra light.

If you only need storage, a garden shed construction or shed installation may suit you better.

Usually not, for a house, because most summer houses fall within the permitted development rules for outbuildings. The points that most often affect a summer house are:

• Height near a boundary: Within 2 metres of a boundary, the whole building must be no more than 2.5 metres high. That usually means a flat or mono-pitch roof.
• Height further away: More than 2 metres from a boundary, the eaves can be up to 2.5 metres, and the overall height up to 4 metres with a dual-pitched roof, or 3 metres with any other roof.
• Verandas and decking: Permitted development does not allow a veranda, balcony or raised platform. Many summer house designs include a covered veranda, and decking over 30 centimetres high is also excluded. Either can mean a planning application is needed.
• Use: It must be incidental to the house, such as a garden room, office or gym, and not a bedroom.
• Position: Not in front of the house.

Flats, listed buildings, conservation areas and Article 4 areas have extra controls. We check the position at the survey and design to the limits.

For a summer house that nobody sleeps in:

• Under 15 square metres: Building regulations do not normally apply.
• 15 to 30 square metres: They do not normally apply if the building is at least 1 metre from any boundary or built mainly of non-combustible materials. Because most summer houses are timber, this usually means keeping a larger summer house at least 1 metre from the boundary.
• Over 30 square metres: Building regulations approval is needed.

Electrical work must be certified whatever the size.

A summer house is a room with furniture and people in it, so the base must be stronger and flatter than a shed base, and it must stay dry. We usually build on:

• A concrete slab: The most solid base, suited to larger summer houses, garden offices and gyms.
• A timber frame base on ground screws or pads: Useful on sloping ground, near tree roots or where concrete access is difficult. It is raised for airflow.

For a building you will use all year, the floor is insulated, and the base is designed so rainwater drains away from the walls.

Yes. We run a suitable cable from the house, usually buried in a trench, to a separate consumer unit in the summer house with RCD protection. Then we add sockets, lighting, and outdoor lights if you want them. A new circuit like this is notifiable, so it is certified through one of the routes the building regulations allow, through our domestic electrical installation service.

For heating, a well-insulated summer house can be kept comfortable with electric panel heaters or a heat pump unit that heats in winter and cools in summer, through our air conditioner installation service. Insulation in the floor, walls and roof matters most: without it, a summer house will be cold in winter and hot in summer.