Orangery/conservatory

[ozzia]

We're buying a new house and it needs a lot of work doing including a new kitchen. I really want to extend out the back of the house, adding an orangery or conservatory to be the dining room so its nice and bright. I'm trying to roughly budget now, so I was wondering if any lovely mumsnetters have had an orangery or conservatory recently and could suggest how much it cost? No one wants to quote on the house until we've moved in case it falls through.

Ours would be around 3.54m by 4.5m and we live in Sussex (if that impacts costs at all)

TIA

[ozzia]

Bump

[mandy214]

Just check which way the garden faces and think about the extras. I know someone who had a gorgeous orangery but all of the very expensive dining furniture was ruined by sunlight and in the recent mini heatwave they've had to put something (plastic sheeting) over it on the outside to stop the sun coming in because it makes the room (which is their main living space) far too hot to actually use. They are having to have air conditioning installed which obviously ramps up the cost.

[orangina01]

Not trying to kill your dream of a conservatory but we have just had ours replaced with new double glazed windows and a warm roof (ie normal roof but lightweight aluminium frame). When we had a normal conservatory with a polycarbonate roof it was absolutely boiling in summer (and it is completely north facing!) and freezing in winter. The difference is incredible. We have full windows on all sides and 2 velux windows in the roof. I think it will be equally good in the cold weather. Just be sure that is what you want before you invest! Hope it helps. Sorry I can't help on conservatory costs but our "sun room" as I call it was about £10k as we got some extras.

[orangina01]

Oh and it was 3 x 3 metres

[NorbertDentressangle]

Every one I know that has a conservatory moans about the too hot/too cold thing. I think you need to be thinking more towards a proper extension with proper roof rather than a conservatory. It's obviously going to cost more but at least then it's a usable space.

Also, are conservatories being being called orangeries these days?? IMO an orangery is the sort of thing that you find built on the side of somewhere like Blenheim Palace!

[mandy214]

An orangery (as far as I understand it) is a kind of solid walled room with a glass roof (or roof lantern). I might be wrong though! This is what I mean...

[deardeidre]

My friends (S.E) are having an orangery built with a lantern roof. Their quote was £30k, not sure if that includes vat.

[ozzia]

I like the idea of a sun room I think, maybe that's the way to go. Solid roof but glass around. It will be south facing so don't want to cook ourselves! Seems a conservatory is a common way in our area to add a dining room, I noticed this when house hunting and never considered there may be issues

[PlainHunting]

I thought an orangery was a large glass building in the grounds of a house in which one grew oranges and other exotic plants.

[ozzia]

I think that's what they used to be. I'd describe it now as a conservatory with more bricks and less glass :-)

[hooliodancer]

Yes an orange is like a normal extension but with a glass roof and more Windows. Conservatory is all glass.

I have done loads of research on this recently as we are planning the same. I believe an orangery and an extension are roughly the same price- maybe a few thousand less for the orangery. A conservatory is much less as no bricks.

Ours should be about 30k, it will be 16 square metres. We are having bi fold doors. We haven't decided yet on orangery or extension yet, just getting the quotes in from architects.

[ozzia]

Eeek, I think I may have under budgeted

[prepperpig]

An orangery is often more expensive than an extension due to the cost of the glass and the lantern in particular.

You can get a conservatory for much less but having had one I wouldn't have one again. Dead flies galore, freezing in winter in our climate and boiling in the summer months. You simply can't imagine how many insects will come to your conservatory to die.

Orangeries look beautiful but again are not ideal with our climate.

[mandy214]

I think £30k for 16 square metres, plus bi fold doors is very cheap. Where are you hoolio?

[ozzia]

I keep watching things like double your house for half the money and they seem to get the work done so cheaply, I don't understand how they manage it!

[hooliodancer]

In Surrey, that's what 2 architects have said anyway. There will be nothing in it, just a box really as it will be a dining room. It works out at 1.5k per square metre plus the fees for architects etc,

[bilbodog]

i've lived with kitchen/conservatories for about 13 years and absolutely love it. Yes, it could get hot in summer but just make sure it has roof vents and open all the doors and windows - it faced south/east so got beautiful sun in the morning which in summer disappeared from about 3 pm onwards. Was gorgeous in winter when it was cold outside but the sun would stream in. I also had an AGA in the kitchen so this kept it warm enough through winter. I can't wait to have enough money to build another one on my current house.

[ozzia]

Bilbodog did you leave the doors inbetween the two areas or have it as part of them room? How was it in the rain, I did have the thought of "is it stupidly noisy in the rain"

[prepperpig]

You now need a thermal break between the two rooms

[Fruityflapjack]

We have an orangery. It's 4mx3m. It's has no internal doors dividing it so it's integrated with the kitchen/diner.

It's brilliantly insulated and has a small electric radiator which is cheap to run. In the winter we actually saved cash as we live in the back of the house now during the day so just had that on and not the main central heating.

We have sails in the glass roof to keep the heat down in the summer, we are South/East facing so full sun until about 2pm.

We wanted bifold doors but cost was silly (about 2k) so we have massive patio doors which open to 180 degrees so get a similar effect.

We had other works done at the time but full cost for building and finish was about £17k.

We line in the midlands Btw.

[Fruityflapjack]

Oh, if we sell the house we'd have to put in internal doors between the orangery and the house. For the planning purposes (we had it done just before the changed) we had internal doors on the plans.

[ozzia]

17k seems very reasonable! Its great to know it can be that sort of price. Long term we will add a new kitchen in there too but I think we'd start with the extension and just leave the floor as concrete until we sorted the plans for the kitchen.

[MrsJamin]

Had a sun room in the house we're now extending, it was only nice for about 4 weeks a year when it was a sunny spring or autumn day. I'd just do an extension with some bifolds instead.

[ozzia]

I think I'll get quotes for all options and then we can decide from there. I just want it to be lovely and bright

[ladybird69]

I have an oak framed garden room with under floor heating. The roof is solid with velux windows and glass walls the whole end has opening glass doors that slide back. It's cool in summer and super cosy in winter, lovely sitting in it with thick snow on the ground. It really joins the house to the garden I love it.