Powering a Garden Golf Room: Electrics, Cable Runs & What It Costs (UK)

Every garden golf room project has a glamorous half — the launch monitor, the projector, the big glowing screen — and an unglamorous half that actually decides whether the thing gets built: getting power to the building. It is the question customers ask me most nervously on WhatsApp, usually phrased as “can I just run an extension lead down the garden?”. The short version: a golf simulator draws far less power than people fear, the heater draws far more than people expect, and for a permanent build the right answer is a buried armoured cable on its own circuit, installed by a registered electrician. Here is the whole picture in plain English, including what it typically costs in the UK.

What a golf simulator actually draws

Let’s kill the biggest misconception first. People imagine a simulator is some power-hungry rig that needs an industrial supply. It isn’t. I ran a cheap plug-in energy monitor across my own setup for a week to put numbers on it: projector, laptop and launch monitor running together peaked at under 600W — roughly what a decent microwave pulls. Then the 2kW fan heater switched on and quadrupled the reading in one second. The heater is the electrical story in a garden golf room. The golf kit is a rounding error.

A standard UK 13A socket delivers about 3kW. So a single well-installed circuit will happily run an entire simulator and a 2kW heater with headroom to spare. You do not need three-phase, you do not need some exotic supply — you need one properly installed circuit, sized by an electrician for the length of the run. If you are still choosing the hardware side, our launch monitor collection and our guide to choosing a simulator projector cover the kit end of the equation.

The right answer for a permanent build: buried SWA on its own circuit

For any garden room, insulated garage or outbuilding that will house a simulator permanently, the correct approach is a steel wire armoured (SWA) cable, buried in a trench, running from your house consumer unit to the outbuilding on its own dedicated circuit. Inside the building, the electrician will usually fit a small consumer unit of its own with separate ways for sockets and lighting, all RCD-protected.

Why buried SWA rather than a cable clipped along the fence? Mechanical protection and longevity. A fence-run cable gets attacked by UV, strimmers, gates, foxes and time. An armoured cable in a trench — typically around half a metre down, with warning tape above it — is out of harm’s way for decades. The armour itself protects against the one spade-strike it might ever meet.

Cable sizing is the detail people miss. Over a long run — say 25 or 30 metres to the bottom of the garden — voltage drop becomes a factor, and the electrician may specify a thicker core than the load alone would suggest. That is their calculation to make, and it is one of several reasons this is not a DIY job. Your job is simply to tell them the honest peak load: simulator kit plus heating, which for almost every home setup means “about 3kW, mostly heater”.

The rules in plain English: Part P and who can do the work

In England and Wales, installing a new outdoor circuit is notifiable work under Part P of the Building Regulations. In practice that means one of two routes: either a registered electrician (one belonging to a competent person scheme such as NICEIC or NAPIT) does the work and self-certifies it, notifying building control on your behalf and issuing you an installation certificate — or you notify building control yourself, pay their fees and have the work inspected. The first route is cheaper, faster and what virtually everyone does. Electrical Safety First has clear consumer guidance on Part P and on finding a registered electrician.

That certificate is not paperwork for its own sake. When you sell the house, your conveyancer will ask about electrical work; when you claim on insurance after any electrical incident, the insurer will ask who installed the circuit. An uncertified DIY garden supply is exactly the kind of thing that surfaces at the worst possible moment.

What it typically costs

For a straightforward garden-room supply — trench, SWA cable, small consumer unit in the outbuilding, sockets and lighting, certification — the typical UK market range is around £500–£1,200. That is a market observation, not a quote; your number depends on three things. First, run length: 8 metres of trench is a morning, 30 metres is not. Second, what you are digging through: lawn is cheap to open and close, patio or driveway is slow and expensive. Third, the state of your existing consumer unit: if there is a spare way and modern RCD protection, connecting is simple; if the board is old, you may be quoted for upgrading it at the same time.

When I helped a customer in Cheshire spec his garden-room build last winter, the electrics were the line item he was most braced for — and because his trench route was lawn the whole way, the quote came in comfortably under the figure he had mentally reserved. Dig-friendly routes matter more than most people realise, so if you are still positioning the building, keep the cable run in mind.

What an extension lead is genuinely OK for

Now the honest middle ground, because not every setup is a permanent building project. An outdoor-rated extension lead has a legitimate role: temporary use. If you are hitting balls into a net with a battery-powered launch monitor and a laptop, on a dry evening, with an outdoor-rated lead that is fully unwound and plugged into an RCD, that is a perfectly reasonable way to practise. Plenty of our launch monitor customers run exactly this while they save for the full room — many monitors barely need mains power at all.

What an extension lead is not OK for is a permanent installation: a heater and projector fed through a window gap, every day, all winter. The reasons stack up quickly. A sustained 2kW load warms cables, and warms coiled or pinched cables dangerously. A lead trapped in a window frame is a wear point. There is no proper RCD or IP-rated protection at the garden end. And if anything does go wrong, “the outbuilding was permanently wired via an extension lead” is a sentence you never want to say to a loss adjuster. The dividing line is simple: temporary practice, fine; permanent installation, do it properly.

While we are on protection: anything outside or in an unheated building should be on RCD protection without exception, and any socket exposed to weather should be a proper IP-rated (IP66) outdoor socket, not an indoor fitting in a sheltered spot. Your electrician will do this by default; it is worth knowing why it matters.

Put data in the trench while it is open

Here is the tip I wish more people heard before the digger arrived: run data alongside the power while the trench is open. A garden room 20 metres from the router, behind a brick house wall, is precisely where Wi-Fi sulks — and simulator software updates, course downloads and any streaming you fancy all appreciate a wired connection. The rule is separation: data cable goes in its own duct, kept a sensible distance from the power cable, or you use fibre, which is immune to electrical interference entirely. The marginal cost of a duct and a data run in an open trench is pennies. The cost of digging the lawn up again next year is not.

Heating: the biggest draw, and worth choosing deliberately

Since the heater dominates the electrical picture, choose it deliberately. In a properly insulated garden room, a 1.5–2kW heater brings the space to comfortable quickly and cycles off. In an uninsulated garage you are heating the sky, and no socket circuit fixes that — insulation does. Infrared panels are worth a look for golf specifically: they warm you rather than the air, which suits a room you occupy in one spot for an hour. Whatever you choose, wire for the heater’s full load plus the simulator, which — as covered above — one good circuit handles comfortably. Our full garden golf room guide covers the building side: planning permission, insulation and layout.

Frequently asked questions

How much power does a golf simulator need?

Very little. Projector, computer and launch monitor together typically draw under 1kW — less than a kettle. Add a 2–3kW heater and the whole room still sits within what a single properly installed 13A circuit delivers. The heater, not the golf kit, sets the requirement.

Can I run a garden golf simulator off an extension lead?

For temporary practice — a battery launch monitor and laptop, dry conditions, an outdoor-rated lead fully unwound with RCD protection — yes. As a permanent supply for a heated garden room with a projector, no. Permanent installs need a buried SWA cable on its own circuit, installed and certified by a registered electrician.

Do I need building regulations approval to run power to a garden room?

Yes — a new outdoor circuit is notifiable under Part P of the Building Regulations in England and Wales. Use an electrician registered with a competent person scheme (NICEIC, NAPIT and similar): they self-certify the work, notify building control for you and issue the certificate you will want at house-sale time.

How much does it cost to get electricity to a garden room?

The typical UK market range is roughly £500–£1,200 for a garden-room supply: trench, armoured cable, a small consumer unit, sockets, lighting and certification. Run length, the surface being dug and the state of your existing consumer unit are what move the number. Always get a proper quote — these figures are context, not pricing.

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