I finally converted my conservatory

Hmm, tempted to try doing ours now. It’s an older style lean to with brick walls either end and wooden joists running from the house down to the windows supporting some of that horrible polycarbonate roof material.

My worry would be that most of the light for the dining room and kitchen comes through it so I don’t want to block it off too much.

Might make some fabric drapes to hang between the joists as a prototype.

My worry would be that most of the light for the dining room and kitchen comes through it so I don’t want to block it off too much.

Same with us WRT the dining room, but I pleasantly surprised by how little light we lost (hardly any to be truthful)

I’ll get a piccy of the stuff we used and post it in a few mins.

Are you calling it the convertary now?

It does reduce the light but it’s still got 3 sides. Also with leds now you can put light back in and the running costs are low. Certainly a lot cheaper than heating a conservatory and having the lights off.

I rarely go in the dining room now as I sit in the convertary more.😁

I did the same to our conservatory three years ago, I also did one wall of it at the same time as it was frosted glass, it’s made such a difference being able to use it nearly all year round.

I used TLX silver

from here

http://www.tlxinsulation.co.uk/tlx-silver/tlx-silver.aspxTLX Silverhttp://www.tlxinsulation.co.uk/tlx-silver/tlx-silver.aspx

Might make some fabric drapes to hang between the joists as a prototype.

If your going to do something as far from the original idea as that you might as well use black bin bags…..

#insertpeterkaysketch……*

*Stupid linking won’t work for me on my phone

Today is the hottest day of the year so far. I’ve been in the conservatory and I’m happy to say it’s no longer warm enough to melt candles.

It was warm but with the windows open I could happily sit in there. It’s made a massive difference which is handy as my old dinning room has now been converted into a play room and we now have a table and chairs in the conservatory.

Glad it worked out, we have been in ours all summer and winter. Best £250 I have spent

Saw this thread sometime ago and finally got round to getting a quote. Conservatory is smaller than the OPs, no angled sections to worry about and skimmed plaster finish. £5k!!!!!
Some of the people above could make some serious money😁

@damascus How has the conversion held up during the winter and now some warmth is coming back? Not too cold in the winter and no condensation or damp issues? still not hot enough to melt a candle on a sunny day?

@oikeith

It currently looks like a kids nursery. We pretty much live in there during the day at the moment as mini D is 2 and plays outside a lot.

Its holding up well. Warms up quickly in a morning, 5 minutes with the electric radiator warms it, then the house keeps it warm.

When the sun comes out its cold enough to sit in with the windows open. It’s a pleasant place to spend time. I couldn’t have done that before.

Best thing I ever did, it’s made it part of the home. It doesn’t seem to have stopped a lot of light either.

As we are locked in during the covid 19 it’s made looking after the dusty lid a lot easier.

We used it in January for his birthday party. Again, electric heater to warm it up then the house keeps it at temperature. The hot air seems to get trapped in the roof space and not lose a lot of heat.

Highly recommended. Give it a go yourself.

@ian-r £5000 is crazy.

It took 3 days to do it including plastering. A mate helped with lifting etc the first two days, a further day to paint it on my own. Probably £300 in materials in the end. So that’s a lot of labour charges.

That’s about £500 a day each!

My neighbour who did it first and paid for it. (I stole all their ideas) paid about £1800 I think.

Get some more quotes. I think if you’ve not done one before it would take you a while so they are probably adding on just in case.

If you do it, make sure you put enough battens on to support the plaster board. The professionals that did my neighbours used one contractor for wood work and plaster board and one for skimming. When the plasterer skimmed it the whole thing sagged and had to be re done. That saved me from making that mistake myself.

@damascus
Yep I thought it was ridiculous. The firm that replaced the roof glass with insulated panel quoted over £11k!!!!!
Done it myself now. Was going to use internal upvc cladding. Now looking at lining with curtain material to soften the noise in there a bit.
Feels a lot better at keeping the temperature down in the sun.

I did ours last year – a different technique but far less weight.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/wQxZR3JxZWqkxM9n7

As above, we were quoted £13k to convert and were told that it would conform to building regs, but they wouldn’t arrange for removal of the patio doors into the house (large rodent detected nasally). For anyone who’s wondering – there is no roof system possible that can allow you to turn your conservatory into an extension and let you get away with the conservatory rules.

Decided to try this and see how it worked. Cost all in was just under £2k.
Over winter it has been usable, although still takes some energy to keep fully warm.
The big losses are the glass (obviously), the poor fitting french doors and the uninsulated floor.
We’re contemplating ripping out the tiles and laying insulation followed by laminate.

We retained the patio door but at xmas we removed the leaves for the day to open up the area for a family dinner.

We’ve not seen the hottest weather yet with it, but thermal gain on the hottest days has been far less than previously.

We moved in 4 years ago

conservatory is huge, was a great room, but bitterly cold in winter, repaired a lot of the woodwork, but polycarbonate roof was shot, repaired it before xmas with bitchumen tape but was leaking again in Feb
Finally bit the bullet & got it replaced , its 12m by 3m, quotes were from £7-13k! in the end got a deal for £4.5k for tapco fake tiles only,

used 50mm celotex, had an investigate & thermal properties much better than the multilayer blankets (tho by my shonky calcs would need 75mm with 75mm cavity above to meet regs?)

Was waiting for lockdown & ordered the plasterboards just b4 lockdown, done the one low wall and managed 4 plasterboards of the ceiling, but with homeschooling & wfh, itd be easier if I was in work & could just take some time off!
(tho I hvae dug the pond out you can see in the pic up there, just waiting for some pond plants to arrive)

still have to board the back wall too & going to try skimming myself (but failing that I do know a good plasterer)

weve definately lost light into the back of the house, but its not so bad, planning some ikea LED panels and some Govee led coulur strips
& the conservatory is so much more usable already

The LED strip light around the perimeter covers 95% of our lighting needs in ours and we’ve cut out 1/3 of the window space as well.