PROVIDING YOU WITH AN EFFICIENT ALL-WEATHER SOLUTION

It’s important that your garden building can be used all year round and therefore it needs to be as thermally efficient as a modern house. You don’t want it to get too hot or too cold, but you need it to maintain a constant, comfortable temperature.

We build very high quality, energy efficient garden rooms, offices, studios, lodges and buildings which utilise state-of-the-art thermally efficient materials, creating structures which do not need large amounts of energy to heat or cool. Your building is ready to use at all times – even in extreme weather – and it won’t burn a hole in your pocket.

SIP PANELS

Structured insulated panels (SIPs) are a modern composite building material. Our SIP panels are made from two layers of the best quality 11mm OSB (oriented strand board), or flake board as it is commonly known.

Between them is an insulating layer of highly thermally efficient, expanded polyurethane foam. We screw our panels together with long high tensile, self-tapping screws and also use expanding adhesive foam to ensure 100% air tightness.

SIPs combine several components of conventional building, such as studs and joists, insulation, vapour barrier and air barrier. They can be used for many different applications such as exterior wall, roof, floor, and foundation systems.

WHY DO WE USE SIPS?

A well-built structure using SIPs will have a tighter building envelope and the walls will have higher insulating properties. This means fewer drafts and reduced operating costs.

Construction time can be reduced compared to a traditional timber frame building because SIPs work as framing, insulation and exterior sheathing, and come pre-cut from the factory to meet the needs of each individual building project. This also means fewer tradesmen are required on site.

The panels can be used as roof, walls and floor – the latter being particularly beneficial when used above an un-insulated space.

The total life-cycle cost of a building constructed from SIPs will usually be cheaper than a conventional framed one and some even achieve 40% life-time savings.

In many cases SIPs are structurally more robust than timber framed buildings but have a similar versatility for creating custom-built designs.

BUILDING REGULATIONS AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Under the latest revisions to the new Part L (England & Wales) Building Regulations, a minimum standard U-value is required for the thermal efficiency of a newly constructed building.

All Garden Spaces garden rooms, garden offices, lodges and buildings are designed and manufactured to exceed the U-values required under these new regulations.

WHAT IS A U-VALUE?

A U-value is ‘a measure of air-to-air heat transmission (loss or gain) due to thermal conductance and the difference in indoor and outdoor temperatures, in relation to an area of material, expressed as w/m2k (Watts Per Square Metre Kelvin)’

As the U-value decreases so does the amount of heat transferred through the material, i.e. the lower the U-value, the better the level of insulation.

REQUIRED U-VALUES

To comply with the new Part L (England & Wales) Building Regulations building components must have U-values that are at least equivalent to the following:

Walls
Building Regulations Walls Minimum = 0.35 Wm2k

Floor
Building Regulations Floor Minimum = 0.25 Wm2k

Roof
Building Regulations Roof Minimum = 0.20 Wm2k

All of our garden buildings exceed these U-value requirements and therefore offer outstanding thermal efficiency.