Over the last few weeks we have had a flurry of emails from garden office buyers asking “do I need to organise the base for my garden office?”.
The quick answer to the question is sometimes, it depends on the supplier you choose to work with.
There are several different foundation systems used by the garden office industry. Each supplier will have a preferred system and will make the final decision on the foundation type during a site visit.
Some of the garden office suppliers we feature have a groundworks team who will travel to you a week or so before your garden office is due to be installed, and prepare the foundation. Other suppliers use a foundation system that can be installed by the main installation team without any delay waiting for it to set.
Then there is another group of garden office suppliers who ask you to prepare a concrete slab before they arrive on site. These suppliers normally leave this task to the customer because of the travelling distance from their workshops. Adding in travelling expenses would make the price for the foundation much more expensive than asking a local contractor to undertake the task for you.
When you are asked to install the foundation yourself, you will be sent some drawings with the dimensions that the slab needs to be and the recommended build-up of aggregate and concrete. It will be important that these plans are followed and that the foundation is ‘square’ so there aren’t any problems once the installation team arrives on site.
Suppliers who ask you to arrange the foundation will make this clear in their specification. If when comparing one garden office with another, one seems significantly cheaper it could well be that the foundation is not included in the cheaper version.
So, how much should you allow for preparing the foundation yourself? Your garden office supplier will be able to give you a guide price based on their experience. We have seen prices around £1,200 for a 2.4m x 2.4m base and £1,500 for a 3.6m x 3.6m base, so its a substantial part of the overall project cost.