A garden gym you will still be using in February

Here are the numbers so you can measure yourself rather than take our word for it. The roof slopes, so inside you have 2.05m (6' 8.5") at the back rising to 2.22m (7' 3.25") at the front, on every size in the range. That is fine for benching, machines, cardio and dumbbell work. For a standing overhead press, stand up, put a broom handle over your head at lockout and measure it: if you are over about 6ft you will want to press on the front, taller side. A ceiling-mounted pull-up bar will not fit, but a wall-mounted one on the front wall will.

Not loaded bars from height, and we would rather say so now than argue about it later. The floor is 40mm and insulated, sitting on pressure treated bearers, which is a good deal more than a shed floor but it is still a timber deck. Nearly everyone lays rubber matting over the top: it protects the floor, saves your plates and takes a lot of the noise out. If you are planning deadlifts at any weight, tell us when you enquire and we will talk through the base and the floor before you order, because for that the base underneath matters as much as the building.

That is the whole reason to buy an insulated building rather than a summerhouse. The walls, roof and floor are all insulated and double glazing is standard: a 140mm roof at 0.17 W/m²K, a 40mm floor, and 24mm double glazing in every window and door, or 28mm on the Composite and Pressure Treated. It holds warmth well enough that most people find they are taking layers off five minutes in, which is not true of a single-skin cabin in February.

Worth thinking about, because a gym puts far more moisture into the air than an office does. An insulated, double glazed building is already much less prone to condensation than a single skin one, where the cold surface is right there against the warm air. The windows open, and most people add an extractor fan or a small dehumidifier and leave a window on the latch while they train. Rubber matting rather than carpet helps too.

Some of it, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something. This is an insulated timber building, not a soundproofed room: it takes the edge off, but a plate dropped on a bare floor will carry. Matting under the kit does most of the work, rubber-coated weights do the rest, and siting the building away from the boundary where the garden allows is worth more than either. Music at a sensible volume will not trouble anyone.

Not as part of the kit. Almost everyone has an electrician run an armoured cable from the house once the building is up, which is a straightforward job on a room this size. Worth doing properly: a gym wants more sockets than you think, decent lighting and usually a fan.

In most gardens, no. Garden buildings normally fall under permitted development if they sit behind the front of the house, take up less than half the garden and stay under the height limits, which is 2.5m within 2m of a boundary. The Paradise ridge is 2.48m and the Composite 2.46m, both deliberately under that line. Check with your local authority for anything large or close to the house.

A level, solid base slightly larger than the footprint, and for a gym we would steer you towards concrete over slabs where there is a choice: the point loads under a rack and a stack of plates are a lot higher than under a desk. We partner with Sussex Concrete Bases: mention Garden Rooms for Sale when you book and they will look after you on price.

Our recommended team installs, priced by building size from £1,000 to £1,950 within 50 miles of our showroom in Cowfold, near Horsham. Further afield we often still install, priced per job: tell us your postcode and we will confirm. Installation is invoiced separately and paid on completion.

There are buildings at our showroom at Camelia Botnar Garden Centre in Cowfold, near Horsham that you can walk into, open 7 days a week. Stand up in one and you will know in about ten seconds whether the headroom works for you.