I finally converted my conservatory

I asked a while ago about conservatorys as mine was too cold in winter and too hot in summer. It would get so hot it would melt candles. The conservatory came with the house I bought and it was a real disappointment. When mini D came along I needed more space for all his stuff.

Before

I attached battens to the beams, stapled insulation up and them more battens for the plasterboard to attach to.

I then plasterboarded it, this picture is before I sorted out the lights

Bought some colour changing led strips online and built a rail for them to hide behind. Ceiling has had a coat of diluted paint. Needs a few more coats and the rail needs painting white. Sorry, only photo I have is red.

Hoping to finish the project off over Easter.

insulatio

Insulation, silver tape, battens, screws, plasterboard, plastering (I did this) etc. Wooden rails and all lights cost £250. I’ll let you know this summer if it was worth it

Your forum name should be Austin Powers.

Yeah, baby, yeah.

So has this solved the usual conservatory issues? Mine is a useful space for about six months a year, but would love to use it year round.

Nice and not a million miles away from a full roof conversion that cost us 10k. We’ve just moved into ours as our sitting room for the summer as the conversion has made it a usable room. Enjoy.

That looks great.

@matt the lights are usually soft white but I’ve been using the lights to teach my boy his colours. He loves changing them. Green is his favourite.

@bagstard, don’t know yet, it’s early days. The electric wall heater in there is enough to heat it at night but instead of being on constant we turn it off after 20 minutes and it stays warm for a few hours before going on again.

The main test will be keeping the summer heat out!

you have done a nice job! Looking forward to the summer update, even if not perfect in the height of summer I’m sure it will be a vast improvement.

Show us a pic when there’s a foot of snow on the outside added to all the extra weight on the inside! 🙂

Have you put ventilation in the cavity above the insulation?

Looks lovely.

From a ‘it’s the sort of thing I think about’ perspective: Did anyone look at it from an enginnering/structural perspective as to where the additional weight is loading the existing structure?

Roxanne?

Is that you?

Can I ask how have you skimmed the plaster. I would imagine there would be a lot of movement in the roof (expansion in summer). Just worried it might crack? Daughter has a similar problem hence the question.

Looks nice but keep an eye out for damp. I would expect you to get a lot of condensation on the inside of the roof glass in the winter.

I can’t see this lasting! Especially with issues on condensation and sagging due to the weight.

If you’re happy with it though, good luck to you.

I’d be interested to see what it looks like from the outside

Looks lovely.

From a ‘it’s the sort of thing I think about’ perspective: Did anyone look at it from an enginnering/structural perspective as to where the additional weight is loading the existing structure?

I wouldn’t worry too much about the weight. I took down a similar terminally rotten softwood one and despite the rot it was incredibly strong. The replacement conservatory I installed is fine with 100kg of me walking round on the roof beams. The fancy glass in the new one makes it a much more usable space.

People always like to moan about conservatories being a PITA.

I reckon ours is useable (>20C) Febuary till November as it’s south facing, which means that probably Febuary-May and September-November it pretty much heats the house if the kitchen door is left open during the day to let the heat in. Dec-Feb it’s still warm/dry enough to dry clothes with the kitchen door closed.

Then in summer it’s a place to go sit after a BBQ, as opposed to trying to keep warm burning every bit of damp wood within a mile radius in the firepit/chiminea/Unni/Brazier (delete according to middle classness and prevailing fashion).

I did ours 2.5 years ago.

I didn’t use plasterboard though, I skinned it with lightweight UPVC boards in white.

As long as you leave 40mm + between the inner face of the polycarb and the insulation, condensation is not a problem.

ours has been great, we have a useable room in winter now and in summer it’s fine.

No condensation issues at all in ours. i did add some small double glzeing vents in the opening windows as a precaution though.

Cost = £250 all in

Untitled by eastham_david[/url], on Flickr

Untitled by eastham_david[/url], on Flickr

Untitled by eastham_david[/url], on Flickr

Like the idea of the lightweight UPVC boards – good work!

You can buy UPVC sheet in a 2400 x 1200 size as well. Ours was called Palfoam, and it would act as a lightweight sheet without the ridges that UPVC boards would give.

@Damascus, @Vottexracing have you got any pics of the outside that you can post?

I’ve got round the “winter” part by installing a big wood burner. When that’s running it will easily sit at 18 degrees regardless of the temp outside.

Summer is another topic. We have doors at both ends so just open them and out a fan on to push a bit of air through

I want to convert mine and the one you have done looks great. Thing is all that weight looks like it is resting on plastic window cills?

I’m in love, are you single?

We had the same issue on our big conservatory.

We got a guardian roof as a complete replacement for the existing pvc one – it’s about a foot thick with a lot of insulation. It’s transformed the room so now it’s maybe 1 cooler/hotter than the rest of the house. It did cost a lot more than the figures being mentioned above but I think it was well worth it.

I would have concerns as mentioned about the weight of snow though. We have a beam across it for that reason. We didn’t really want it there for aesthetic reasons but they were absolutely clear that it was necessary though of course with the amount of insulation ours had it will inherently weight a fair bit.

Hi, to answer a few questions

1) picture of the outside. It doesn’t look any different and I’ve left a gap so I can replace the polycarbonate if I need to.

2) the battens are screwed to the metal beams, nothing is resting on the edges. There’s a 10mm gap all the way round thats filled with flexible filler to allow movement. I’ve plastered it so if it cracks I’ll just patch it.

3) I was quoted £1500 for the exact same thing to a raw plaster finish. My neighbour did his, the company did it in the exact same way. They’ve done loads and seem to know what they are doing. I’ve just copied them.

4) it’s been hardly used by us so if it falls down it’s no real loss. One day I’ll build an extension, this is just a temporary thing to keep us going. When it snows I’ll be out with a brush 😁

5) just for matt

love

as always in these things ask yourself – what would mcmoonter do.  In this case he’d have attached a couple of railway sleepers across and filled the space about with firewood* so you are probably good to go

* this might not be 100% true

I’m guessing for the condensation issue it depends on whether or not you have managed to create a proper vapour barrier but I’ve seen lots of ‘professional’ stuff where they don’t seem to be aware and it still works. maybe

I really like the idea of this. Our conservatory is quite a waste of space at the moment and we’ve been looking at re-roofing it with the lightweight solid roofs that are available but this would be a whole lot cheaper.

looks like a cracking grow house, might be best frosting up those windows though! 😆

Interesting, the main problem with our conservatory is the noise when it rains.
Would be good to know how much this cuts the noise down by.

@dirkpitt74 it was the first thing I noticed. You can still hear it if it’s heavy rain but it’s muffled.

Kind of the difference between a tent and a campervan.

@dirkpitt74 it was the first thing I noticed. You can still hear it if it’s heavy rain but it’s muffled.

Same here, and Damascus beat me to the piccy, you can’t tell it’s been done from the outside unless you look very closely.

It’s one of the best £250 we have spent

@Vortexracing, how long has yours been converted for?

since October 2016

@vortex – how do you fix the sheet to the battens? Is there a special fitting for the job?

If you mean the insulation sheet then you just staple it, if you mean the UPVC, then you use small nails on the tongue end (left sticky out bit in the piccie) and the next piece covers the nails.

I did a similar thing to the conservatory in my old house, made it warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.

I want to do the same thing to mine, can somebody post the insulation used please?

I used this multi foil insulation from ECO homes. I bought the cheaper version as I’m not living in it so it wasn’t important enough for the extra money. Buy the foil tape that they offer, it’s really good. Screwfix etc sell similar products

Home

Apparently 1cm deep is the equivalent of 12 cm traditional insulation.

Vortex – I did mean the Pvc sheet, thanks

I really like the look of these; it would make a big difference to my conservatory.

The problem is I’ve got skylights; not sure how to work around them

I used celotex and uPVC cladding on mine but my roof was flat, so a lot easier to work with. My father-in-law however was so impressed with the difference it made, he did exactly the same to his (with a roof similar to OP) and just lost the height of the original roof.