Had some quote a through for a conservatory, appro 5×3 meters, with full walls either side, glass roof, dwarf walls to t he front with window above and double patio doors. . The garden is not south facing. . The conservatory will have plumbed in radiators and will be open from the lounge (no doors). . The glass is the solar stuff which apparently is better than glass used to be. . However before i splash the cash, will I be disappointed with a cold room or will it be great and no problems this time of year?

Ours bloody is! As is my Dads, although his is usable if the radiator is on and a fan heater has been running a while. As soon as there’s any sun it heats up fast though.

Yes. I think it might be in the building regs… but if not make sure there are external quality doors between the rest of the house and the conservatory. That way you can shut off the cold conservatory from the rest of the house.

Conversely you can also shut off the baking hot conservatory from the rest of the house in the summer and keep the house cooler.

I would seriously reconsider having no doors.
They do get cold in winter and that cold will come into the rest of the house. It’ll be like having the front door open.
That said, with walls on either side it might not be so bad.

In the height of winter we find we have to turn the radiators on for a little bit before we can use ours but not for long.

In summer they get incredibly hot. In fact, if there’s any sun they get incredibly hot. Make sure you have some ventilation built in.

Mines freezing in the winter, and bloody hot in the summer.

No doors! You’re insane.

They are absolutely sodding freezing in the winter, because they have a lot of glass but also no curtains.

And they are also absoutely sodding boiling in the summer, so you end up with blinds all over the place. In autumn and spring, and in less than great summer weather, they go from boiling when the sun’s out to freezing when it’s in pretty quickly. This is even worse cos you can’t even account for it.

So all in all, fairly pointless imo 🙂 I’ve never come across one that was a useful room in a house. We had one in a rental house, a nicely made one, but it was off the back of a large living room. So we just sat in there, you had to make a real effort to sit in the conservatory.

It will be cold and if you aren’t keeping the external doors it requires building regs which it won’t meet because of the thermal element.

We rented a house which had a full width conservatory, full height walls either side and dwarf wall to the garden and it was v. cold in winter. Underfloor heating made it useable but was expensive so we only used to use it when we needed the extra space because of visitors.

I don’t think you are ‘allowed’ to have them open to the house without exterior quality doors unless it complies with certain insulation requirements. My mother-in-law has one open to the hallway and it really is cold.

I’d also try and get a proper roof on it (even if its a conservatory style solid roof) to reduce overheating in the summer)

Mt eldest is sleeping in ours whilst the extension with his bedroom is built – he goes to bed looking like a polar explorer, so am guessing they do get a bit cold!!!

IME they are a bit of a compromise.

As most have said freezing in the winter and red hot in the summer.

If you can get planning spend the extra and build a proper extension.

The extra cost will be covered by your fuel bills over time and it will be a lot more useful.

If you go for a conservatory then definitely put doors between it and the house.

Don’t waste your money, make it a “sunroom” instead with a proper roof, we can never use ours due to it being too cold so plans are afoot to convert it. Oh and …no doors? you’re making a big mistake there

As above- we’ve got a similar size to yours but with a solid wall down one side.
The comments about a dividing door are deffo right- ours can be very cold in winter unless the hearings on, and very warm in summer. There’s no way I would have an open space- it’s also nice to close the door and escape the noise of the house too sometimes!
We have 2 good sized rads as well- one at either end.

Cold in winter-too hot in summer. A condensation trap for 4 months of the year, if it’s anything like ours. (and noisy) Just had a warm roof put on ours after 4 years of damp, condensation and worry. About the same size as yours. Quotes varied from 4-8 thousand Best thing I ever did.

agree with everything said above (and have to plumbed in big radiators).
All bar peak of summer it closed off to the lounge.

We put a 6 by 4 metre conservatory on the back of the house just over a year ago. The solar reflective glass on the roof is great. It definitely makes a big difference during the summer. The old conservatory with triple wall polycarb roofing got hot enough to melt all the candles one afternoon. I think not having a door will be a mistake. We designed ours around a 6 Kw Jotul wood burning stove. The heat from this makes this the most popular place in the house during the winter 8) Heating ours with the central heating is pitiful. Irrespective of how good the sales pitch about thermal properties is, you’re basically throwing heat out into space.

D.

Ours has a wooden roof with some form of insulation and non-full-height windows. It is freezing in spite of having two radiators. It has doors to block it off from the rest of the house, but it still acts as a heat sink – the adjoining kitchen is made much colder than it would otherwise be!

Thanks all for your comments. . I recon that’s resolved it. . For the money it does not seem at all worth it. . Maybe spend the extra cash and get a proper extension!

I’ve rented 3 places with conservatories, and they’ve all been exactly the same, as above: in winter they were all about the same temperature as outdoors and in summer they felt like they were about 40 degrees. Very small seasonal windows of opportunity when you could actually comfortably spend time in them.
Good for storing stuff in but not much use for anything else IMO, although I expect if done properly and thoughtfully they might be OK.

Well we have underfloor heating (off the boiler)and eat all our meals there; it’s toast even when there’s snow outside (like now). We never close the doors to the house. It’s only got one glass wall (2m by 3m)and roof is low-e double glazed 6-12-6.4.
We might waste a bit of energy but the difference in our quality of life having all that extra light in the scottish winter can’t be understated.
In summer it’s toast and we love it (no blinds or tinted glass); we just have to remember not to leave the butter dish in there!

Yeah, hang on. Our conservatory is by far our favourite room in the house. Yes, it needs a bit of heating in winter and perhaps some windows open in summer but if you get it built properly with at least one full sold wall, they can be great rooms. Ours has one full length wall and one half wall,

I do think these help in making it a normal room.

Right, we just had a proper sun room extension built last year, c8m x 5m with vaulted ceiling c 4.5m high, so I researched this quite a bit (including seeking advice from the stw massive).

Some people have all year round useable conservatories but far too many say they’re too cold or too hot alot of the time. So I’d suggest a proper roof with extra insulation over and above building regs, enough veluxes as you need, decent sized windows and a nice tri fold door with all glazing to A rating. extra insulation to the floor and then connect to your existing heating with sufficient rads not to struggle to heat the space. Job’s a good ‘un. Only thing I’d change would be grounbd source heating but that wasn’t doable and maybe a wood burning stove when money’s no object 😉

I think B Regs will require doors to connect OR you can increase spec of insulations elsewhere through the house to compensate so that the new property has a lower U value than the old – sounds hard but isn’t really – the web has everything you need and to do the calcs and spec the build or seek a competent person to draw up your B Regs application.

A Conservatory is a great asset to any house if its placed on the right aspect. West facing is probably the best, mine is and how nice it was today when it hit a tad short of 20 degrees in summer it can get too hot if I forget to vent it but in winter and a radiator it never drops lower than 15 degrees in there.
Allows me to grow these :-0

The radiant heat you get from our underfloor heating (hydraulic as it’s cheaper to run)is what makes our conservatory viable. The air temperature in there can be 15deg, yet we’re still comfortable ‘cos of the warmth around the feet.
PS. We chose underfloor as it was invisible to the building inspector (we weren’t allowed to heat a “sun porch”) 😈

Turbo trainers set up in ours at this time of year. Perfect whilst watching it snow…

flap_jack – Member

Turbo trainers set up in ours at this time of year. Perfect whilst watching it snow…
🙂
Ace for bike maintenance, good light levels

A client of mine had one, too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter until I put a false ceiling in it with insulation on top….overjoyed he was, bloody fantastic. He can use it all year round.

As mentioned above if you don’t have external grade doors to the rest of the house it is not a conservatory but an extension, and as such must comply with building regs.

In addition to what ajc says above ref. doors between house and ‘conservatory’, you also need Building Regulations if it is heated by a heating system connected to the house.

No, they can usually afford to keep the heating on all the time….

What? Oh! Sorry misread the title for conservative…

IGMC

Even if you make it the perfect temperature all year – what’s it for? You already have a living room, don’t you? That’s the question I’ve always had. Extensions should be to create space for a real purpose imo. Say you need another bedroom, or a room for hobbies or something.

What Psling said – will now come under building regulations as you are heating it.

From memory on the heating side you either need to have doors between it and the adjoining room or a totally separate heating zone with its own time and temperature control. TRV on rads does not comply.

From memory on the heating side you either need to have doors between it and the adjoining room or a totally separate heating zone with its own time and temperature control. TRV on rads does not comply

Both required.

Not sure what my folks did with theirs which they had built last summer.

But over Christmas the family spent most of the time out there, it was lovely. Probably the nicest room in the house.

Heater seemed pretty pokey, and I think they spent quite a bit.

Whilst looking for a house I found conservatories a big turn off. I see them as Gods waiting room for old folk. imo.

That’ll be my folks then

Use mine all year round. We’ve knocked out windows and door way from kitchen to it and use it as dining room now. Old dining room now an office and sewing room (for the Mrs…not me!!) We put a decent sized radiator in there and keeps the place usable during the winter and plenty of windows to open in the summer. East facing so warms up nicely in the morning 🙂

tbh Build a proper extension. More usable and properly insulated.

When we bought our last house (February), the very next day a plumber pal came around and spur-d a rad off the dining room into the conservatory. In winter though you still didn’t want the door from the kitchen open really.

And in summer we had to leave the outer doors open all day, after the TV (casing) melted…

I use mine all year. It’s open to our kitchen and we eat in the every single day. We just treat it as a normal room.

My sister-in-law has just had a large UPVC conservatory added to the back of their house. They asked me for my opinion. I should have lied but I didn’t so I’m not sure she was too pleased.

You should really be looking on a conservatory as an extension to your garden than to your house.