Garden Room, Cheshire

Often, Altham Oak’s professional craftsmen find that their input is required beyond their original brief. In creating a large garden room extension for a property in Cheshire, their experience in structural design and engineering calculations was invaluable in delivering a successful project.

As part of the work on a large private residence in an affluent area of the county, Altham Oak were charged with the structural oak carpentry work for a substantial extension to the rear of the house.

An architect and a builder had already been selected to work on the project and various calculations, design plans and drawings of individual oak components had been produced, prior to Altham Oak’s involvement. To ensure the finished project was closer to the client’s original desired vision, a revised design for the internal frame in green oak was carried out.

Integrated design

The first element of the scheme to be developed was the large twin oak king post truss to support the other structural components. The initial quote of approximately £36,000 was reduced by around ten percent to allow for the removal of decorative oak features no longer required followed a project review.

Measures were taken to ensure that the weatherproofing performance of the green oak walls wouldn’t be affected by the shrinkage of the timber over time. The impressive dragon ties lift the bottom of the hip rafters to give headroom in the corners of the newly created space.

A passion for the craft

Following the development’s satisfactory completion, Altham Oak were entrusted with a further project for the same client, creating three oak trusses, purlins and beams for an annex to the existing property.

Commenting on his satisfaction with the new garden room, the client said:

‘The cottage industry feel of Altham Oak was a big reason for my selection of them for this project. The fact that their team are so enthusiastic about traditional oak carpentry and take pride in the individual products they make is very appealing.’