A Guide On How To Decide Your Outdoor Classroom Specification

As a company, we pride ourselves on offering one of the UK’s most comprehensive range of outdoor classrooms and shelters – so this therefore means lots of options and choices for the customer!.

The starting point for the end user is to decide upon the following: how much money do we want to spend (or at least set a budget range which can allow for multiple options), how many children and staff do we need to cater for, what are we going to use it for, will it fit in the designated area and do we want something which is open sided (gazebo style) or fully enclosed for year round use.

We can help in all aspects of above.

If we take the open-sided gazebo style outdoor classroom first. We offer three sizes in the octagonal shape which is the most popular (3m, 4m and 5m), three sizes in square (3m x 3m, 4m  x4m, 5m x 5m) and three in rectangular (5m x 4m, 6m x 4m and 7m x 4m). The standard specification is solid timber lower level panels to the sides, timber decking floor with sub-base and a layer of skirting, internal benching and timber roof with IKO felt shingle tiles with waterproof membrane and loglap ceiling. Additional extras or options include canvas roll-down canvas panels to the windows and door (to give more protection from the elements when so needed), internal desks, tiered amphitheatre style seating, ramp or steps, upper solid panels (to form a wall) with whiteboards. We also offer three colours for the roof felt shingle tiles namely green, terracotta red or black. We can also offer cedar shingle tiles but at the time of writing this blog, these tiles are quite hard to come by with the current worldwide materials shortage and are consequently quite expensive.

And then there are the eco options which help the children foster an appreciation of the environment – this includes our renewable energy pack with roof mounted solar panel, wind turbine, data logger system and monitoring/power board with sockets; guttering and water butt for rainwater harvesting; living sedum roof and a water irrigation system with built-in planters.

We have even recently undertaken a job where we built an extended front decking/veranda area to a 5m eco outdoor classroom.

Then we move onto the fully enclosed outdoor classroom range. Again we offer similar sizes to those listed above but in this instance, these buildings are modular so no-one is ever the same specification. The customer can choose between different window and wall configurations and other options allow for insulation to walls, floor and roof; French doors in either pine or a hardwood Sapele; internal wall options including matchboard pine or white panelling with a decorative V groove; floor coverings to include decking, matchboard pine and vinyl. And in this range, we offer a variety of external timber claddings namely redwood pine (treated), cedar and larch. Windows can either be single glazed (laminated) or double glazed.

Also for this type of all-year-round building range, we offer our Hideout House Cabin and our pods (the pods are pre-manufactured units which come delivered off the back of a transport truck).

If a school is wanting an outdoor shelter – and by this we mean a roof supported by posts/legs – we offer some with either a marine grade canvas roof (available in a choice of colours) or a timber roof with felt shingle tiles. These are available in set sizes although you can join them together to give a bigger m2 foot print. We also offer a unique fire pit shelter which has a hole cut into the top of the roof (with a decorative roof cap system over it) and we are able to offer roll-down canvas panels with special fire retardant properties and fire retardant paint for the underside of the roof.

For more information on our range, please contact the Hideout House Company on 01832 275902 or email info@hideouthouse.com