Summer Houses

What you actually get

Glazed doors across the opening, windows down the sides and a canopy over the front. The canopy is the bit people skip and then wish they had not, because it is what lets you sit out in a Merseyside summer without having to go in every twenty minutes. Toughened glass as standard.

Summer house or garden room?

A summer house is a glazed timber building with no insulation. It is bright, it is lovely from about April to September, and it costs a fraction of a studio. If you want to use it in winter or work in it, you want an insulated garden office instead. Sticking a heater in an uninsulated building just warms the garden up.

Dip treated or pressure treated?

This is the main thing that moves the price. Dip treated is a surface coat and wants redoing every year. Fine for a sheltered corner that nothing much blows across. Pressure treated forces the preservative into the timber and comes with the 10 year guarantee against rot. Given how exposed most gardens round here are to the weather off the river, that is the one we would go for.

Which way to face it

South west catches the evening sun, which is when most people are actually sat out. South east is brighter first thing and cooler later on. What you want to avoid is pointing it straight at a fence two metres away, because the glass is the whole reason you bought it.

Base and fitting

Needs flat, firm ground. Slabs or concrete will do nicely. Delivery and fitting are included across Merseyside on a day you pick, and we take the packaging and any old building away with us.