Davieboy84

Yeah it's a SIP roof. Thing is, it's been bone dry for 2 months, however I noticed this afternoon that one of the battens holding it down at the side was loose. There has perhaps been some driving moisture getting between the DPM and room. I've reset the batten and the drips have stopped. Hopefully it dries out fully over the next few weeks and when I get a dry spell I'll get the DPM stripped and let it air for a few days before getting the EPDM on. I'll also get a heat gun in case there are some small areas that need some specialist attention. I'm not massively fussed over how it looks, I'll never see it. I just want it to perform well over the next 15/20 years. Thanks for all your responses

Hello all, I'm currently in the process of building a garden room which is 4.8 x 3.6m. The plan was for the sips kit to arrive in August to give me some nice sunny weather to build it and get the EPDM roof on. The kit was delayed however and didn't arrive until the middle of November, which meant I only had a 3 day dry window to erect the kit before the rain came in (I live in Scotland, it's been a very wet winter). I used a DPM secured over the sides with battens to protect the roof over winter and it's performed pretty well, allowing me to crack on with the bifold, window and cladding. My plan was to wait until warmer weather in April or May before fitting the EPDM roof, however today I've noticed a small drip inside the garden room coming from the roof. I climbed up and had a look at the DPM and can't see any obvious tears, however it might just be starting to fail slightly after quite a harsh winter. My question, is how dry does the substrate need to be when installing an EPDM roof covering? I'm certain that a majority of the roof timber is none dry, apart from this one small section where there is a drip. Do I need to wait for a week long spell of dry weather (quite rare in Scotland . . ) with the DPM removed to completely dry out the roof timber and sips panels, or will a day of dry weather do the trick? I'm now quite keen to get the proper roof covering on but I want to make sure it's done correctly. Thanks in advance.

Yes that's it, it's purely the vertical cladding that I'm not sure about. Your solution sounds exactly what I should be doing. Do you have any photos you could share so that I can get an idea of what it should look like? Thanks for taking the time to reply 👍

Yes it's a full sip construction; floor, walls and roof. But it's the vertical wall cladding that I'm looking to ventilate.

So you reckon it would be fine to just wrap the EPDM over the cladding as long as the room was well ventilated when being used? It will have a 2.4m wide bifold that will be opened at all times when in use and another window that will also be kept open for ventilation. We won't be using the room during bad weather. I did consider putting in a small overhang of say 75mm all round the building to allow the air gap behind the cladding to vent. Might go with this to be safe.

Hello folks, I'm waiting on the delivery of my SIPS garden room kit (4.8m x 3.6m), with my foundation and sub-frame now complete. I'm looking into cladding details and we are keen for a contemporary style with no roof overhang around the building, and the cladding running to the top of the walls on all 4 sides. I've added some photos to give an idea of what we're after. We will be wrapping the sips panels in tyvek breather membrane and adding vertical and then horizontal battens to form an air gap before fixing the vertical timber cladding. My question is, what is the best way to vent the air gap at the top, considering we will have no overhang? 1. Is the EPDM roof covering that I'm using breathable, and will therefore let moisture escape? If so do I just lap it over the cladding at the top and fix my facia board? 2. Is my only option to run a horizontal wooden trim across the top of the cladding at the top to form a pathway for the moist air, as per photo 2? 3. Do I need to lap the EPDM over the cladding and then drill vent holes in the cladding near the top (not preferred) 4. Anything else I've not considered? I've been searching the web for a definitive answer to this but I'm struggling to find anything. All comments or suggestions (or criticism!) welcome in my search for something I can build that works. Many thanks.

Hi everyone, First post so please go easy! Currently planning my garden room build, which is going to be 6m x 3.6m. For the base I'm planning to go down the relatively simple route of using 3x rows of concrete block plinths spaced 1.5m apart (front middle and back). For the timber floor framing I'll be using 4x2 treated timber and my question is around how do I do form the 6m sides of the base from the 4x2? Can I just join a 1.2m section to the standard length of 4.8m using a connector plate or similar to make a 6m long length of 4x2? Once I've constructed this 6m x 3.6m outer frame and squared it up I'd then hang the joists across the 3.6m span spaced 400mm apart. The only other way I can think of is constructing a 4.8m x 3.6m rectangle frame and a 1.2m x 3.6m rectangle frame and bolting them together. I was worried though that it might be difficult trying to square up two rectangles bolted together. Apologies if this doesn't make a lot of sense but I've searched everywhere and can't find any guidance or videos that cover this. Thanks for any replies, David.