Among the questions we are asked most frequently is advice on heating a Garden Office, how best to heat a garden Studios. Based on the experience of installing wifi electric radiators for thousands of clients, here are our top tips to perfectly heat your log cabin , garden office, studio, summerhouse or hobby rooms, not just for summer.
Many people are working from home now, and this has resulted in using the current rooms in the home differently to manage home-working, home-schooling, and family living.
This means sharing computer time, slow Wi-Fi speeds, and worst of all – sharing the kitchen table to spread out working books, papers, drawings, and documents. There are also challenges of background family noise during online Zoom meetings, with unexpected appearances of the cat, and the dog barking at the postman during your online presentations.
Hello Garden Office!
The solution has been delivery of a garden log cabin, constructed from thick, interlocking tongue and groove spruce log boards, a log cabin is the ultimate posh garden building. By giving up a small area of your outdoor space, you can gain a dedicated garden office with the room you need and a healthy separation from your home life. So much more than a shed, a log cabin can be anything you want it to be, perfect choice for anyone who’s ever dreamed of owning their own Home Office, Gym, Hobby room, Cinema, Meditation Room.
Having an outdoor electricity supply is an easy task for any local electrician, and if you have existing patio lights or security lights, then taking a feed into the new home-office, is quick and easy. So now you have power for the laptop and printer, coffee machine, and lights, but most mornings and late afternoons…. Its COLD! So, the question we have been asked most frequently this year, is how best to heat a garden office or studio.
Heating Your Garden Office or Studio
Based on our experience of installing Wi-Fi-controlled electric radiators for thousands of clients in the UK, here are our top tips of how to perfectly heat your log cabin, garden office, craft studio, hobby-room, summerhouse, or home-workroom, that will provide comfortable heating for spring mornings, autumn evenings, and winter days. A home-office is not just for summer…
Step 1: Choose the right electric radiator
Also, BEFORE you choose a radiator, be sure that the BTU or Kw capacity is adequate to heat the SIZE of your garden office, otherwise it will be expensive on energy usage, as it tries to bring your room to temperature. It can actually SAVE you energy costs, by ensuring that the radiator you choose, has the OUTPUT and EFFICIENCY to heat the room adequately. Then when the desired comfort temperature is reached, a good radiator will switch off, saving you energy, and just maintain the temperature with short bursts thereafter.
Buying electric radiators online is a quick and easy process but be sure you are dealing with a reputable supplier who conforms to the current (post Brexit) UKCA Mark, Ecodesign, EN Standard and Part L Building Regs. Ask for their compliance certificates BEFORE you buy. Here at INTELLIHEAT, we have full compliance certifications for all these regulations.
Not all garden offices include heating
If you have invested in a more expensive garden-office structure, rather than just a wooden shed, don’t forget to check whether it includes some form of heating. Some suppliers don’t include heating claiming that their designs don’t need it, and for some months in the year this is correct, but for cold spring mornings with a temperature of 2 degrees, rising to 8 degrees maximum all day, you will definitely need heating to be able to work and think in comfort. Doing a zoom presentation in 3 jumpers, hat, and gloves, isn’t a good look.
Luckily, an IntelliHeat electric radiator can regulate the temperature to within 0.1 degree, is affordable to buy, easy to fit on the wall, and just plugs into a normal plug socket. They are also very easy to use, and the designer ranges of shapes and colours are stunning to look at.
The Elephant in the Room
Let us just say that the costs involved of adding to your existing fossil fuel heating system, by digging underground pipe runs, adding extra pumps to cover the distance, and possibly also upgrading to an even bigger gas guzzling 30 Kilowatt boiler to cope with it, would be in thousands, and take an army of workmen a week to complete. The heat loss through the underground pipes would also affect the efficiency of output and require vast energy usage of both gas AND electricity to function. It may have been a novelty in Roman times, but the state-of-the-art thermodynamic electric radiators would certainly be their heating of choice now.
Programmable, thermostats and remote Wi-Fi Heating
To ensure energy efficiency and comfort, keeping you warm when you want to be, (and NOT when you don’t – like panel heaters that has to dispense its heat whether you want it or not) you need to ensure that your chosen heating system has a daily, programmable thermostat built into EACH electric radiator as standard. If you choose an IntelliHeat radiator, we go a step further and provide ways of controlling your temperature remotely using the Free MySense App, on your phone or on your laptop. Then you can switch the radiator on from the supermarket, or from your bed, without getting cold and running across the garden.
Cheapest way to heat outbuildings
With Intelli Heat, entire systems now NO LONGER need to be controlled by a single On/Off setting, which is a very inefficient way to heat a summerhouse. The Intelli Heat heating system allows you to heat and control individual rooms and individual radiators using our unique Ecodesign 24/7 programming system, or the App on your phone, or the dashboard on your computer. After all, why heat any room when no one is using it.
Garden-Office Heater Ideas Installation of our thermodynamic electric radiators couldn’t be simpler – no plumbing is required as they can just be fixed to any wall and powered by the existing electricity socket supply, making this a highly effective electric heating system with zero – YES ZERO! installation costs. If you can drill 4 holes, fix the provided brackets, and put a plug in a socket, download the APP, and you are good to go…
Make the most of your PV Solar Panels
You can use up to 100% of the PhotoVoltaic power generated for the summerhouse or garden office, using the renewable electricity you’ve generated. With a typical 4kWp P.V. system, on the cold but bright sunny days, we suggest leaving the radIator on at 20.5 degrees between about 9.30 and 13.30, with a period of Comfort setting at 21.5 degrees between 11.30 and 1pm, and at 21 degrees between 15.30 and 17.30. The radiators can operate using a small trickle of current being fed to them, right up to the full current required to heat the radiator to its maximum output and comfort temperature. IntelliHeat radiators advanced electronics will modulate at temperature whilst solar gain is being achieved and then fed to the radiators. This is ideal for rural locations as well as in towns, where your solar panels will save energy from the national grid.
Garden Studio and Garden Office heating
Shopping for electric heating for your garden-office or craft room, should be a quick and easy process, but please do make sure that your chosen brand is fully compliant with all UK Regulations, or you may discover that a cheaper import doesn’t comply, giving you no recourse to any refund when it doesn’t do the same job, or give out the same heat efficiency. Why not find out how the IntelliHeat range of designer radiators can help you to achieve your dreams… Our complete range of electric heating systems, radiators, and heated towel rails, can suit all rooms and all budgets.
We offer a complete Free heating project advice service, where we will calculate the exact BTU or KW requirement for your outdoor building, specifically designed to help you heat your garden office and outdoor workspace efficiently and affordably.
