Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Do you REALLY need insulation in your garden office?

One of the issues we constantly bang on about here on Shedworking is the importance of insulation to ensure your garden office is suitable for working all year round. But following yesterday's annual first post about snowy shedworking, Paula from Keops Interlock Log Cabins got in touch about the thermal properties of their cabins which makes very interesting reading.

Keops's own garden office in Evesham (pictured above) is a two bedroom lodge made from 56mm logs with their comfort grade roof & floor insulation and double glazing. "I can tell you today it’s a chilly minus 4 outside but in here it’s very warm and cosy," says Paula. "We have a 3kw electric heater (that looks like a wood burner) and a couple of oil filled radiators that are on low in case of frost and that’s it. The cabin heats up quickly to a comfortable temperature and because of the natural thermal properties of the wood, retains the heat all day."

So why haven’t they got wall insulation?
"It's because we only use Northern Scandinavian pine which is a very slow growing timber and very dense, with excellent thermal properties. Yes, we can, and do, provide an excellent wall insulation system that meets building regulations approval, and we could have fitted it retrospectively at anytime during the last six years we’ve been using the cabin, but we’ve never felt the need."
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:39 PM

    If your home is poorly insulated, it usually pays to upgrade the insulation. If you are building a new home, it makes sense to insulate well now, so you don't need to retrofit later.

    wall insulation

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  2. I have to ask how reliable this is. There's simply no way 55mm wood is thick enough to prevent major heat loss. You need some form of insulation, be it celotex or kingspan...I keep seeing companies spouting about how their cabins dont need any extra insulation, its complete nonsense. Sure, if you're happy to run a 3kw heater 24-7 then go for it, but surely paying for a decent insulation in the first place will dramatically reduce your heating bill!

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