Self-Assembly Garden Rooms - Is it worth saving money by doing it yourself?
Published: 12 February 2025
Reading Time: 2 minutes 10 seconds
Guest Post by: Garden Buildings Direct
When you’re shopping for a garden room, many providers will include installation as part of their service. Installation can add between £500 and £3000 to the cost of your building, depending on a few factors:
- How large the building is
- The simplicity of the building materials (log cabins take more work than panel walls)
- Whether they are installing electricity or plumbing
- Whether they will be treating or painting it for you
- Any extra requirements which make the installation more complex
Many providers also have to come and survey your property before the project can start, making sure your garden room will fit legally and safely. All of this only adds to the cost.
However, there are also many providers which either provide installation as an optional extra, or eschew it entirely and simply provide parts without labour. But should you save on the builders’ fees by taking the DIY route?
How easy is it to build your own garden room?
Wooden garden room kits allow customers to assemble the parts themselves on their own property. This does require some measure of basic DIY skills, and these tools:
- A hammer, for nailing some of the wood together and securing the roof
- Common household screwdrivers for securing adjustable parts with screws
- A saw, for trimming certain parts to size
- A drill, for making precise screw holes
- Measuring tape, to ensure exact alignment
- Spirit level, to make sure the parts are fitted straight
- Gloves, to prevent splinter injuries
Protective eye wear - One other adult to help.
So while this probably isn’t very accessible for people who have never used a hammer before, you don’t have to be a qualified builder. If you can put up a fence, you will be able to assemble one of these wooden garden rooms.
And then there’s the consideration of time, and how valuable it is for you. Depending on size, a garden room can take upwards of 2 days to construct. Sacrificing a weekend to build your garden room could be worth it, although you might want to think about whether you will need to take any extra time off work in addition.
What can go wrong if you build your own?
There is a level of self-liability when taking the DIY route. In theory, you could damage the parts if you don’t know what you’re doing. You would also be responsible for ensuring the garden room is in a safe location on a solid level base.
Certain wood garden rooms, particularly those with log cabin construction, will naturally shift, expand, contract, and settle with time. This is a common cause of wood splitting and cracking when amateur builders nail parts together which shouldn’t be fixed and that should be able to gradually move alongside one another.
However, provided the instructions are correctly followed, building your own garden room is a relatively low risk activity, comparable to any other wood-based home DIY project.
If you want your garden room to have electricity or plumbing, this should absolutely be left to qualified professionals to install.
The verdict
If building your own garden room is an option for you, the choice will ultimately depend on how confident you are in your ability to complete the project. The expense of installation fees could be worth it for the peace of mind and the assurance that it will all be done correctly. However, if you have decent DIY skills and the time, it could be well worth it to save quite a few hundred pounds.
