Many years ago, our company pioneered the concept of an eco classroom that featured many items which allowed the children to learn about the environment and sustainability- so the building was meant to both be functional and educational at the same time. They could learn from just being in the building shall we say!

Well, we are now moving this concept on so that it can work on a different and smaller scale. The Eco Hub building is a 4m x 4m outdoor classroom shelter which has our standard felt shingle tile roof and log lap ceiling (which is tanalised to the highest grade 4 for outdoor protection). The side walls are timber lower level solid panels and the back wall is solid running from floor to roof. The front is open sided. The standard model will not have a timber decked floor although there is an option to have this if so required. So far, very normal you might say!

But then we start to add in the eco elements. Firstly, it will feature our very popular and unique renewable energy equipment which is designed to be first and foremost an educational tool. It has a roof mounted solar panel and a mini wind turbine. These create energy which is then stored in a battery which is mounted on the internal monitoring board. This energy is then converted into usable electricity via an inverter so the children can use the sockets to power up laptops, tablets etc. The system also comes with a datalogger and a bulk head light.

The Eco Hub will also include a water butt, roof guttering and water irrigation system (again powered by a mini solar panel) to provide for rainwater harvesting to provide water for whatever the school wishes to grow in the planters provided.

One of the lower level panels will also have a built-in bug hotel unit giving the children the opportunity to explore nature’s various bugs and wildlife!

And you can have roll-down canvas panels to the windows and entrance if you needed some extra protection from the elements and can therefore use all year round comfortably.

And last but not least, the special electricity generating bikes – we are working with a specialist supplier for these. Basically the children have to pedal on specially adapted bikes with built in dynamos to create energy – this will then power up a music system with bluetooth, speakers and sound pads, a bubble making machine and some bright revolving disco type lights! When the children stop pedalling, so does the music  – a good incentive to keep up the pedal power!

We shall be installing the first one fairly soon so we will post a video of this as soon as it is available.

For further information on the Eco Hub, please contact the Hideout House Company on 01832 275902 or email: info@hideouthouse.com

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

Technology moves on so quickly nowadays it can be quite daunting but we certainly need to embrace it rather than be scared of it.

A lot of the enquires we get from school staff are at the start of their journey – and by this I mean they sort of know what they want but not really and therefore need some further guidance. So there is quite a lot of initial questions to be asked, a lot of head scratching involvement, sharing of ideas with related parties etc before we usually move forward to providing quotes and design proposals. And as we offer quite a lot of options, we factor these into the discussions as well.

I was visited recently by someone who has just finished university with a first class honours degree in Product Design and he was telling me about AR (augmented reality) and showed me some examples of it. It totally blew me away – the example he showed me was of a new design of kitchen units and appliances which you could customise on screen in a high resolution 3D modelling format. Once you had decided upon your design, you could then (by way of an app) place your new AR kitchen into your existing kitchen to see what it looks like once installed. Absolutely brilliant!

So we will be soon be introducing this design service for our outdoor classroom and shelters range. Customers will be able to pick a product from the website they are interested in – so say for example an octagonal outdoor classroom. They can then choose from a suite of options to add to this  – the size first off and then the various options to choose from eg roll-down canvas panels, renewable energy equipment etc – they can see what this looks like on-line and it will give a build-up price indicator as well.

Once the customer has decided upon the final specification, they can then put that building into their own playground (scaled) to see what it looks like.

Watch this space!

As part of our overall service, we like to help schools access funding to pay for our various products if indeed they need assistance in this respect. Hence the reason why we spend a lot of time researching what grants are currently available for educational establishments and what type of projects they will support. Once we have this information, we then point schools in the right direction. We also very much appreciate that school staff do not always have the time themselves to do this research so that is why we feel that this adds a certain value added benefit to our overall customer service.

We are presently finding that a lot of schools are having success in obtaining funding for what we call Post Covid Recovery projects. As has been widely promoted in the media, the school community – staff, pupils and parents – have been significantly affected by the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. As well as affecting their education of course, lockdowns and social restrictions have taken a noticeable toll on children’s mental well-being and health. Projects that are helping promote and assist with these issues are therefore tending to attract the most money – this would include (but not limited to) the following:

• Any outdoor learning  – less chance of Covid transmission outside, easy to socially distance and an appreciation of the outdoors and nature
• Physical play – projects that promote fitness (healthy body equals healthy mind)
• Sensory gardens – calming and nurturing environments
• Sensory rooms
• Mindfulness areas including nurture rooms

At the Hideout House Company, we do offer quite a significant range of products which are complimentary to all of the above. We offer outdoor classrooms, fitness trails, enclosed outdoor classrooms.

For small nurture room groups, we also have a range of unique classroom pods.

Our sensory gardens can be a simple range of play panels and planters right up to fully landscaped garden design projects.

If you would therefore like to discuss how we can help your school access grant funding and our product range, then please give us a call on 01832 275902 or email: info@hideouthouse.com

We are not just a supplier of quality outdoor classrooms and play equipment for schools as we are able to offer extensive ancillary advice and help in the following matters as well:

1. Funding – as well as compiling our own Funding Guide which lists important and useful information such as how to apply successfully for grants and other funding opportunities, we can also point you in the right direction of some specialist educational funding consultancies who should be able to help you in your quest for funding
2. Planning permission – with regards more so to the outdoor classrooms range, we can also advise your school about the issues of whether or not you will need planning permission (and building regs if applicable). If your project does require planning permission, we are able to provide scaled drawings which you will need for your planning submission.
3. Designs – we make play grounds come alive with the designs and layouts of the products we will have discussed with you. These drawings are free of charge and always put the project into more of a realistic perspective
4. Testimonials/referrals. If you wanted to undertake more due diligence before making a final decision as to which company to use for your playground project, we are able to put you in contact with some of our previous customers for a referral and in some cases, you might even be able to visit their school to see our work
5. General advice – it also goes without saying that based on 25 years of experience, our directors will be able to advise you on what could work best with your budget and aspirations/needs and alternatively, what will not work best!
6. A Network of Contractors – we have worked extensively over the years with other specialist contractors and have built up special trading relationships with them. So if your project does require something a bit out of the ordinary, we are usually able to help out in this regard

For more information on the Hideout House Company and if you would like to know more about the above, please do contact us for an exploratory chat on 01832 275902 or email us on info@hideouthouse.com