Garden rooms can be craned into a garden
A garden room can be craned into a garden, though it is not as commonly used as off-site construction methods and complete on-site installations.
It is, however, an incredibly quick way of installing a garden room. With the foundation system already in place, the room can be lifted in position, levelled and ready to use in hours.
With this method of installation, the garden room is usually completely built in the company's workshops. The exterior and interior finishes are applied, and the room is pre-wired electrically. Just leaving the final electrical between room and house to take place once the building arrives on site.
Craning in a garden room can be the way to overcome difficult access to your rear garden. Buildings are usually delivered on a lorry fitted with telescopic hi-ab lifting equipment. If the lorry is able to park relatively close to the intended plot, it can be lifted off the lorry and into its final position with the hi-ab.
If the intended plot is beyond the lorry's reach, a bigger crane can be booked to lift the garden room off the lorry and lower it into position.
In a former life, when we were still building garden rooms ourselves. We worked on several projects in our workshops that were then craned into position. We even had projects where the building was lifted over the main house - nerve-wracking for us, but the crane operator was as cool as a cucumber!
Not many garden room companies offer craned-in options
If you are looking for a garden room design that can be craned into position, you will have a limited choice of companies to work with. This is because designing a garden room that will withstand the lifting process takes skill to design and calculate and will require extra time during the build stage.
We can suggest a couple of experienced industry names who could design a building that can be lifted into position. Swift, who specialises in bespoke garden room design, have experience transporting and craning in their buildings. You may also like to explore the garden pod designs that JML Garden Rooms.
We recently featured a project in London, completed by White Peak Design Build, where all the materials were craned in over the terraced house. So they are another company to speak with.
Craning in a garden room could save you money
The on-site installation phase is one of the most expensive parts of a garden room project. This is because you have the overhead of several team members and their travel and accommodation costs.
Lifting a garden room into position by crane reduces this on-site stage considerably. Once the foundation is in place, the building can be situated in a couple of hours. An electrician would then connect the electrics up, and you are ready to move in.
While this method of installation cuts down on labour and accommodation costs, it is in itself quite an expensive task. A lorry has to be hired. This lorry might require an escort car and movement order if the building is big. If a separate crane is required, that will add to the costs too.
It would be wise to compare the cost of having a garden room craned in with off-site constructed modular designs and those that are constructed from scratch on-site.
Option of being moved again in the future
If your garden room is properly designed with a steel lifting frame, there is the option that it could be moved again in the future. We have known people do this when they move house.
Because they are designed to be moved, this type of garden room potentially has a resale value too. It is a limited market, though, as, in our experience of promoting some second-hand pods, people are fearful of the costs of the crane and transportation.
