Are Garden Rooms Environmentally Friendly?

If you are looking to create extra space at home in an environmentally friendly way, then a garden studio could be the perfect option.

Every house move is reported to create 16.8kg of CO2, from creating additional air pollution, to the contribution to landfill, as well as from the packing material waste to the impact self-storage facilities create. Extensions are not much better, typically built on solid concrete foundations and built upwards using bricks. It is estimated concrete is responsible for between 4 – 8% of the world’s CO2.

Garden studios are built right in your backyard, so you can create extra space on your property without the need for moving or building an extension. They are often designed, built and constructed with high build specifications, ensuring they are environmentally friendly. So the answer is yes, garden rooms are environmentally friendly! Let’s dive deeper.

How are Garden Rooms Environmentally Friendly?

There are several areas which enable garden rooms to be an environmentally friendly product. We’ll go through the details below:

Garden Buildings Base

The foundations of a garden room can make a big difference. Some companies build them upon solid concrete foundations. However, every tonne of processed cement releases a tonne of carbon into the atmosphere. The cement manufacturing process itself also creates a number of other nasty air-pollutant emissions such as dust, sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides. Plus, once you’ve laid a concrete base, it’s a permanent fixture and pretty much there forever.

Others use a recycled plastic pad/grid system, which is simply placed on the ground and filled with loose stone.  Whilst this is a very eco-friendly way to provide a foundation, we would only use this method for lightweight building structures which are placed on very firm ground, as we doubt the long-term stability of this approach.

Considering the above, we build our Urban Escape Studios on heavy-duty composite posts, which are concreted into the ground, with a stainless steel frame bolted onto them. We find this is the perfect solution, as it lifts the studio off the ground, leaving a breathable space and removing the risk of rising dampness and condensation. Depending on the size of your garden room, there will be 9-30 posts used. Therefore using a lot less concrete but creating a foundation which is more environmentally friendly and also helps to create an insulated garden building.

Garden Room Cladding 

As standard, we clad the exterior of our studios with ToughWood™ cladding, a natural defence against nature. It is an engineered wood manufactured from wood strands compressed under extremely high pressure and bonded together to create an ultra-tough dense, stable cladding, providing a valuable layer of insulation. Its ultra-tough lifelong durability makes it a reliable cladding type in any environment. It is also PEFC-certified and PVC-free. 

We also offer western red cedar using only FSC or SFI-approved providers. 

Learn more about our garden room cladding here.

Eco Garden Office Insulation

In our garden studios, the floor, walls and roof are all constructed using structurally insulated panels (SIPs), creating a sealed envelope which offers highly efficient thermal values and exceptional strength. The wall thickness is 100mm (subject to cladding type), and the floor & ceiling are 130mm thick, which makes our studios warm in the winter and cool in the summer, so they can be used all year round. 

Good insulation also makes our studios more energy efficient, lowering heating costs and providing connected environmental benefits. We use PUR insulation which is the most effective thermal insulator. Thermal insulation with the use of polyurethane is completely safe, both for people and animals, as well as the natural environment. At the same time, our fully insulated eco rooms create an unattractive environment for insects, rodents or other pests, and its durability is estimated at up to 50 years.

Our eco-friendly studios are also built with quality windows that make use of double glazing to allow plenty of natural light in whilst keeping your garden offices, garden gym or yoga studio insulated and cosy.

Green Roofs

Studios up to 3.8m deep can have a planted sedum roof, which not only looks spectacular when flowering but also offers a sanctuary to insects, bees and birds while helping to insulate your garden room.

Green roofs promote biodiversity in gardens and are a haven for wildlife, particularly for bees which are incredibly important in our ecosystem. They blend in perfectly with their surroundings while promoting the natural beauty of your garden. They also provide an additional layer of insulation, helping to keep the garden room cool in the summer and warm in the winter – reducing the power required for heating/air-conditioning.

Conclusion on Eco Garden Rooms

Garden rooms are fantastically eco-friendly options for those wanting a little more space without negatively affecting their environment. At Urban Escape Studios, we build our garden rooms with the best materials and construction methods available so that our customers are always happy, and so is the environment.

If you would like to know about our sustainable eco studios, get in touch with us today. 

Note: If you want to know about building regulations and if you’ll require planning permission, read our blog on garden room planning permission.