With its trade-marked sloping-walled, the Arctic Cabins wooden BBQ hut, complete with a central BBQ grill and optional drinks bar extensions for all-year-round entertaining, is the perfect escape.
The short answer to a question we often hear at exhibitions and shows – what is an Arctic Cabins BBQ hut?
To answer in more depth, we design and manufacture our Arctic Cabins in the UK, in a purpose-built factory in Derbyshire and install them all over the UK, with our very in-house team of employees, giving you a ‘from start to finish’ service.
Arctic Cabins’ “turn-key” project approach means that once you’ve agreed the design you can sit back and relax, no DIY self-assembly or searching for local tradesmen. Our fitters only build our pixie huts on installation day so it’s just a short time until you’re handed the key and you can start to enjoy your cabin - a perfect, cosy, intimate and fun environment for your family and friends to enjoy.
Slow cook your meat, heat up your mulled wine in the special BBQ kettle, sit back into those sloping walls and enjoy!
Come and see for yourself. At our show site in Nottingham, just a few minutes from J25 of the M1, you can walk around a ‘village’ of Arctic Cabins BBQ Lodges and other timber buildings from our sister company Cabin Master. The cabins are dressed to show what you can achieve and we invite you to take your time looking around the cabins to truly appreciate the build quality. As I say, you'll also find us at many national home and garden shows and events throughout the year.
When you join the family of owners, you join well-known celebrity chefs and gardeners, TV presenters and even royalty - all proud owners of an Arctic Cabins Hobbit House, but it’s the ringing endorsement from a growing ‘army’ of customers that really excites us day-in, day-out.
We are super proud, for instance, of our Trustpilot rating. As I write this, 95% (of 459 reviews) considered Arctic Cabins to be EXCELLENT, with an additional 3% rating us GREAT… making 98% super happy customers!
Reading the reviews, it’s interesting how many of the Frequently Asked Questions received online, by telephone and in person at our Nottingham show site or at exhibitions and shows, are answered by owners themselves.
5 Arctic Cabins FAQs and Our Owners’ Answers
Q1: Will your cabins fit in my garden?
With different sizes of Arctic Cabins™ BBQ huts available (from 7m² to 25m²) you can decide what size will suit your garden, your budget and your dreams.
On Trustpilot, Julie from Peterborough says “It looks superb nestled at the end of our garden”. Shelley adds “It looks so beautiful in the garden and due to its shape has a much smaller footprint than inside space.” Shelley is referring to the sloping walls that create the feeling that the hut is bigger on the inside than it is outside, maximising space available for your family and minimising space lost in your garden.
Heather backs this up on Trustpilot, “I didn't think I'd have room for a 10m cabin but the sloping wall design makes a bigger interior space with a smaller footprint.”
Q2: Will I need planning permission?
While there isn’t a definitive answer to this that fits every installation, in most cases planning permission is not required. In England, for instance, outbuildings are covered by 'permitted development' rights - a type of planning classification which means that you have automatic planning permission without application subject to certain restrictions. The main restriction is that your house is not 'listed', and that you're outside 'Designated land' - which includes National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, conservation areas and World Heritage Sites. So, if you're not in one of those areas, you qualify for permitted development rights.
So, in most cases, your grill hut should be sited at least 2 metres from any boundary (e.g. your garden fence or wall) and should take up no more than 50% of your garden space.
Shelley shared her experience on Trustpilot, “We needed planning permission because of the location of our cabin but we didn’t have any problems getting approval, provided we used approved fuel due to us living in a smoke-free zone. This is no problem as the DEFRA-approved fuels are readily available and we really enjoy our smoke-free fires most weekends.”
There’s more on planning permissions here.
Q3: How long does it take to install one of your cabins/how helpful are your team?
We aim to have everything up and running within a day so you can get to enjoy your BBQ hut as early as possible. Ian from Derby, who purchased a grill cabin before Christmas told us that “Fitters turned up at 7am prompt on an arranged day and assembled our wooden hut and were finished by early afternoon.”
Our timber cabin installers are just as dedicated to customer satisfaction as they are the cabins themselves, Andrew from Mansfield was delighted with his Cabin Installers “I would like to give my sincere thanks to the two fitters that installed my cabin. From the very start of the day, they were very respectful to both me and my wife. I had a phone call the day before and they were punctual on the day of the installation as promised. I was very impressed with their work ethic as they truly never stopped throughout the day. I found their attention to detail was excellent, from ensuring that the base was secure and level to every detail of the finished hut. From the base to the finished pixie house, they took into consideration our individual requirements.”
Q4: How quickly can you deliver a cabin to me?
We want you to be able to take advantage of everything your cabin has to offer as quickly as possible. You’ll have read about materials shortages affecting many building projects, and while they have given us operational challenges, the unique way we operate, with our bespoke factory and in-house teams, we have been successful at insulating ourselves and our customers from the worst of them. We’re pleased to maintain realistic time scales and, at present, are installing within industry-leading time-frames
As Steve Williams on Trustpilot says, “Lead time was around 8 weeks, which was a lot faster than a rival company we looked at, which was 9 months!”
Deborah from Carlton shared her experience with us “Excellent service. The base came and the cabin a week later. The boys turned up on time, cracked on and had our cabin up just after midday.”
Q5: Can I cook more than burgers and bangers in my cabin?
Of course you can, our grill huts provide an open fire and dining space so you can prepare and serve meals all in one place!
There are plenty of blogs on our site about the wonderful food you can cook to perfection on your central BBQ grill, from vegan dishes to a full roast chicken (using a ceramic plant pot to hold in the moisture!).
Shelley’s “‘restaurant perfect’ Tomahawk steak for Christmas lunch” is the latest in a long menu of wonderful meals you’ve told us about on Trustpilot.
When it comes to what food you can cook on your Arctic Cabins BBQ Grill, our advice is simple … experiment! And ENJOY! And share with us!! 
As JDC from Ollerton who chose the small BBQ hut says, “We have spent time cooking and eating in our cabin. We love it and so pleased we chose Arctic cabins!”
We're a family-run business with the desire for our customers to have the very best experience, from initial enquiry to installation. We build our cabins to last - manufactured in our dedicated Derbyshire factory and installed by our own team of fitters. We believe in and trust our product so much that we can give you an unbeatable 10-year manufacturer’s guarantee.
If you have a question or to start your adventure today. Call 0115 932 8888, get in touch via arcticcabins.co.uk or visit our Arctic Cabins Village (our show-site) just off junction 25 of the M1 near Nottingham.
