When I first started to work from home, it was from the dining room table. That served me for about two years, until my needs for more space meant, that I needed to look elsewhere for a space to work from. With winter due, I had just about given up on the thought of an office in the garden, after all my assumption was such that I considered them to be nothing more than a glorified shed.

That was until I came across a sip insulated garden office. Sip, is an acronym for structural insulated panels, where an internal core of insulating material such as polystyrene is bonded to external sheathing materials such as plywood and used in garden offices to make them insulated.

Amazingly more than 5% of all houses in the USA, with a growing number in UK and Europe are constructed from these polystyrene sips. Although the materials used, mainly polystyrene and timber (plywood in garden offices) are not considered to be strong individually, when bonded together they become extremely strong and form the main load bearing elements of any building that use them within their structure.

The insulation capacity is one of the great advantages of sips as they provide a better overall air tightness and greater practical thermal performance than conventional timber-framed walls. Thermal insulation resists the flow of heat by slowing its passage. Heat, a form of energy always travels from hot to cold, so during winter months it tries to flow out of a building, while in the summer, it tries to flow inwards. By reducing heat flow, a properly insulated office uses less energy and stays warmer than a poorly insulated one.

As an example a tin hut which has no insulation would stay warm all the time there is heat, even if situated in a cold Siberian winter, however, remove the heat and it will soon become a very cold place as the heat is able to flow out of the building, following its natural course. Place the sip garden office in Siberia and the heat would take a lot longer to dissipate from the office as the panels slow its passage.

Anyone wanting to work from home should take a serious look at garden offices; they are far more than a shed and are far cheaper than any brick built construction. By using a recognised supplier, like Garden Offices UK you can have all the fittings associated with any normal office including internet points, after all how else did I upload this article?