Garden Office?

[nickyboy]

Good to hear. There are always scare stories on the internet if you go looking.

That looks smart and pretty similar to what I will get. Actually I am getting a lot of extras like the concrete base, insulation and installation so it will be £9200. Then I need an electrician. Any idea how much roughly I should expect to pay for electrics?

Going to need lighting, a few plug sockets, the internet (probably with a wire buried for the 20m to my house). Was thinking of just getting a plug in oil heater to be honest. Is £800 doable for that. That would put my total at 10k.

The office came with a junction box so it was just a case of getting the electrics from the house over to it. Cost me about £200 as it's sitting on top of the ground in an armoured cable for now as we are having other works done.

I just have a Klarstein 1000W electric heater and that's fine for me. Cost was about £80

For internet I would strongly recommend Devolo Magic 2 Wifi. This uses your electricity connection so no need for additional cabling. Cost is £180 for the devices but the Wifi is rock solid and I use it all the time for Zoom calls etc. This is top of the range for this type of connection

I think it's all just about doable for the £10k

 

[fossyant]

Your set up will be more than fine - I literally took over using our summer house - but that basically was a cheap shed, which we'd insulated and ply lined many years ago. Certainly was warm enough over winter, but a fully insulated one will be cheaper to run. For Wifi we've a BT Mesh system with 3 additional disks, two of which are cat5 connected as fail safe. The nearest disc is in my garage connected by wifi to the house disc, but also powerline network too - you've got loads of options, but the powerline ones work fine. - If installing power, it wouldn't be expensive to shove in a 50m cat5 cable with it if it's being burred with the armoured cable.

I would think your £800 should cover it. I did our summerhouse myself and the cable/plugs etc weren't more than £100, but you may see costs going up if the garden has to be dug up.

 

[nickyboy]

Your set up will be more than fine - I literally took over using our summer house - but that basically was a cheap shed, which we'd insulated and ply lined many years ago. Certainly was warm enough over winter, but a fully insulated one will be cheaper to run. For Wifi we've a BT Mesh system with 3 additional disks, two of which are cat5 connected as fail safe. The nearest disc is in my garage connected by wifi to the house disc, but also powerline network too - you've got loads of options, but the powerline ones work fine. - If installing power, it wouldn't be expensive to shove in a 50m cat5 cable with it if it's being burred with the armoured cable.

I would think your £800 should cover it. I did our summerhouse myself and the cable/plugs etc weren't more than £100, but you may see costs going up if the garden has to be dug up.

For us the issue with the Cat5 was that it would have to get back to the router and the positioning for this was problematic compared to where the office is located. Running off the electric network was just less disruptive. Having said that, Cat5 would be the best solution if it can be achieved

 

[fossyant]

For us the issue with the Cat5 was that it would have to get back to the router and the positioning for this was problematic compared to where the office is located. Running off the electric network was just less disruptive. Having said that, Cat5 would be the best solution if it can be achieved

Same here - router is at the front of the house. Powerline works well enough. I'd thought about it !

 

[united4ever]

yeah, our router is also at the front of house too, would be quite awkward to have a cable running from the front of the house somehow. I get around 50 mbps in the house with the wifi - would a mesh system likely be giving me much worse then? I could handle 10% or so. Trouble is, you don't really know until you have set it up and start working with it and then it's expensive to return to it and upgrade it to a different system. It's 25 meters from router at the front of the house to garden office in back garden.

 

[fossyant]

yeah, our router is also at the front of house too, would be quite awkward to have a cable running from the front of the house somehow. I get around 50 mbps in the house with the wifi - would a mesh system likely be giving me much worse then? I could handle 10% or so. Trouble is, you don't really know until you have set it up and start working with it and then it's expensive to return to it and upgrade it to a different system. It's 25 meters from router at the front of the house to garden office in back garden.

Powerline would be cheaper. You can get a mesh system - you'd have a disc at the back of the house, then another in the 'office' - they don't slow anything down. We've 3, one at the back of the house so covers the garden, one in the garage for Zwift, covers the shed office too, and one upstairs. They were 'free' with the BT system. I think you can buy a mesh system for under £100. We've a TP link powerline, which we've just disabled the Wifi, but use the powerline for the Zwift PC, CCTV and as a backbone for one disc.

 

[T4tomo]

You can "test" a TP link powerline solution solution using an extension cable down to the potential office "site". It will be no worse (and a smidge better) when using a proper wired socket.

You can also "Hard wire" into the TP link from a lap top etc which provided a better connection that the wifi option, but you still have the wifi for printers phones etc.

 

[united4ever]

Just watched a video on Powerline, I thought it was some kind of Mesh system but now I get it. Ok, I shall see what the spark says when he comes at the weekend.

 

[nickyboy]

Here is the Devolo unit in the office. Basicall the same unit plugged into another socket near the router and then a cable from the router to the unit. They take a minute or so to synchronise and then you're away. I switch it off in the evening. From switching it on in the morning to my laptop having WiFi is about a couple of minutes

 

[fossyant]

Powerline ones are super simple. From £60 ish upwards - TP Link. Mine is in the garage, running off a wall socket. They do say they shouldn't be run off an extension lead, but I've done that in the past, and it worked.

 

[united4ever]

So thanks for the advice. The Devalo Magic 2 power line is what I went for and us working well. Electrics installed. I have oiled it with 2 coats on the outside and floor on the inside.

Here she is.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

So thanks for the advice. The Devalo Magic 2 power line is what I went for and us working well. Electrics installed. I have oiled it with 2 coats on the outside and floor on the inside.

Here she is.

I like that