Can I live in my Garden Shed?

“Can I live in my Garden Shed?” is a surprisingly popular question that we get asked here at Sheds Direct Ireland. I mean, sure, they’re gorgeous things. Why wouldn’t you want to live in one?

All joking aside, when people ask this, they are looking for short-term solutions (“can I live in it while my house is undergoing renovations”). Sometimes people consider moving their children out to the shed as they get older. So, with that in mind, lets look at the breakdown of this.

Before all that, we asked AI to create an image of a man living in a shed and the result was too rubbish and funny not to share, so here you are:

 

Living in a shed in Ireland

You cannot live in a shed in Ireland. It really is that simple.

You may read American blogs which states that it’s okay to live in a shed, however in Ireland the laws are fairly cut-and-dry. Your shed cannot “be used for human habitation”, according to the 2001 Planning and development Regulations. It’s a wordy ol’ document, but if you scroll down from the link there to ‘Class 3’, you’ll find the relevant notices.

Regardless of duration or the circumstances, you can’t live in your shed.

 

Can I live in my Garden Shed – Other notes

While it should be fairly apparent that people can’t live in sheds, here are some other important notes from the regulations:

 

Keeping animals in a shed

To many people’s surprise, you can’t keep certain animals in a shed. Pigs, poulty, pigeons, ponies & horses cannot be kept in a shed. In Dublin, particularly here in Finglas, there are a lot of Pigeon Fanciers around. We then, cannot recommend that you use your shed to keep pigeons in.

While there has been a precedent by South Dublin County Council at least, which stated that

“Domesticated animals are allowed if they are kept by the tenant” and if they “shall be kept under control, confined or tied“. However, this is pretty vague and we wouldn’t hang our hat on it as a defence. To add to that, there are also numerous posts and instances where the planning permissions have been used to successfully remove pigeons from garden sheds 

Again, for your sake and ours, if you plan on keeping your racing pigeons (or racing poultry?) in a shed, you speak to your local council (and maybe your neighbours) first. It’ll avoid a lot of headache for you and your animals in the long run.

Looking for something small for your cats? Check out our Cat Huts and Feeding Stations!

 

You can’t put a shed in the front of your house

One Dublin woman got notice that she had to disassemble the bike shed in her front garden, or face a €12 million fine, according to Newstalk.

According the planning regulations, “No such structure shall be constructed, erected or placed forward of the front wall of a house.” While Siobhán Kelly, the woman at the centre of the case argued it was a disproportionate and inconsistent response, it soon became a whole big fuss for everyone involved. Until this is all cleared up, we’d advise that you either seek planning permission for anything going in the front of your home, or avoid it all by putting your build to the back of your home.

 

Shed Size

“The total area of such structures constructed, erected or placed within the curtilage of a house shall not, taken together with any other such structures previously constructed, erected or placed within the said curtilage, exceed 25 square metres”.

25m² is 269ft².. We don’t sell anything to that size. We only stock sheds suitable for family homes. This size limitation won’t affect anyone looking for a garden shed, but it may affect those looking to store large machinery, etc.

 

Definition of a shed

Right, sorry to be all ‘Websters Dictionary defines…’ on you, but there’s a difference between a Shed and a Garden Room/Garden Pod. So, when I say sheds above, I’m strictly speaking about the type of garden sheds that we sell here, e.g., stuff like this:

There’s a whole slew of planning jargon about Garden Rooms/Garden Pods, but I am in my arse going to go into that here on a Shed website. So everything we’ve looked at is all about gorgeous garden sheds. Alright? Alright.

 

So, what are sheds for?

Sheds are designed to be used for general storage. I have all my Christmas Decorations on one side of the shed and all my gardening and DIY bits and piece on the other. Some people put work benches in theirs and will tinker away on projects there; I’ve a neighbour who is constantly making adjustments to his bike in his (or at least, that’s what he says). Sheds aren’t made to be lived in. Generally speaking, they’d be far too cold in the Winter and steel ones can become pretty stuffy in the Summer.

 

Any questions?

If we didn’t address your issue here, get in touch with us. If you’ve a really good question, we’ll update this blog post to include it!