The Garden Shed Gets A Green Makeover

How would you like another room - somewhere to play, or work, or relax, read a book, write that novel? Yeah fine but that's way too much work and expense surely? Not it you think laterally it isn't...

Ok, so now you're paying attention just stick with this idea beyond the initial snort of derision. How about your garden shed (or for those who have a garden but no shed, how about getting a shed)? The smallest sheds tend to be about ten feet square, or put another way one hundred square feet, and of course they go up in size from there. Just imagine what you could do with a hundred square feet of space you suddenly acquired. Work, play... yeah we've just covered that.

Sounds great, but there's a downside right? The garden shed is like, in the garden, duh! No heat, no light, no damned use. But again, one person's insurmountable impasse is another person's opportunity to make use of some of those new fangled modern eco-friendly materials and technologies that otherwise just swan around like solutions in search of problems.

So what do you need to do to convert your typical garden shed into a warm, light and welcoming new den? In two words: insulation and power.

Power is obvious, no power means no light and no heat, and no ones wants to play in the dark and cold do they? But insulation has to come first otherwise it's still a mangy old shed that leaks heat and look worse on the inside that it does from outside.

Insulating a shed is not exactly rocket science. You use the same kind of insulation batts as are commonly used in house building. Simply affix to the interior of the shed and board over them which also helpfully makes the inside look more like a regular room. You can even decorate on top of the boards if you really feel like it. Same for the floor; put down the kind of insulation typically used when laying wood or laminate flooring on top of concrete then board over.

In the UK at least it is also possible to obtain wonderful natural insulation slabs called Thermafleece which are made, not of horrible materials such as fiberglass or poly-something foam, but from sheep’s wool. Completely organic, safe and extremely high performance with regard to both heat and sound insulation and ability to cope with moisture (you're in the garden remember, stuff like this matters).

At this stage you might also want to consider replacing the cheap single panes of glass usually held in by two nails with slightly better windows, preferably ones you can open and lock closed and that offer reasonable thermal insulation.

So now you're all cosy and the shed looks more like a regular room, or at least it does in the daylight. What you need is some light and for that you might think you would need to run an electrical cable over from your house, but you would be wrong. Because thanks to recent advances in photovoltaic cell technology (or solar panels) you can collect all the electricity you're likely to need in there (unless you plan on installing a hob and washing machine) from the shed roof.

Now at this point you can go all eco-tech alternative home grown muesli deep cycle batteries and ever so slightly bonkers... or you can buy a ready made solar lighting kit. These range from really simple and cheap single units that will light a small shed for a few hours to rather grander but still not especially expensive systems that could allow you to perform delicate surgical operations late into the night. In all cases solar shed lights can be individually switched on/off and are designed with the shed roof in mind as the platform on which to mount the solar panels.

So how about some heat to finish things off? Once again solar power rises to the challenge and offers you a choice. There are broadly two ways to generate solar heat (in addition to simply putting your now well insulated shed in a sunny spot where it will retain some heat from the day). You can fit solar thermal panels alongside your PV panels or you can use solar generated electricity to power a small electric heater.

Solar thermal panels contain coils through which water is passed and heated by the sun, remarkably effectively as it happens. The hot water is fed to a radiator or underfloor heating pipes where the heat is dissipated and the cycle resumes. You can also divert excess heat to an insulated water storage tank and use it later when the sun has gone.

While solar thermal systems aren't that complicated they can be fiddly to install properly and are somewhat over the top for heating a shed unless you're thinking of practically moving in. A better solution for most folk is to simply increase the capacity of the solar panels (the PV ones that generate electricity rather than the thermal ones that heat water) and use this to power a 12 volt electric fan heater in addition to running the lighting. In a small and well insulated space this should prove really quite adequate for most normal use.

So there you have it, a new, useful and environmentally responsible role for the not so common or garden solar shed.