Upgrade conservatory or spend thousands to get a smaller house?!

[Falcon1]

Our new house has a 20 year old+ wood and brick conservatory that looks lovely and provides lots of extra space. However, the roof is leaking and is in dire need of replacement, the windows are single glazed and draughty and the door have gaps in them. YOu can clearly hear the noise from the nearby train track. Also, it is far too hot when it's sunny and freezing when it isn't. It's part of the house too (no doors you can use to shut it off).

Ideally, we'd tear it down and replace with an extension on the whole back of the house. However, next door have done this and it cost them £90+VAT. We don't have anywhere like this amount of money! So the options seem to be:

a) Spend money on upgrading the conservatory. I've been looking into 'warm roofs' that are light weight tiles to help with the too much heat/heat loss problem. We'd also need new windows and doors. We've only had one quote so far, which was for £25k. This seems like an awful lot to spend on something we ultimately don't really want.

b) Knock down the (large) conservatory and replace with a much smaller extension. We've had a ballpark quote for this - £35k+Vat. We could afford this (just), but it seems like an awful lot of money to get less house!

So, what do you think we should do??? All opinions very welcome!

[scurryfunge]

Knock down the conservatory and replace with a new conservatory?

[5rivers7hills]

Well at the moment you don't have the space because it is leaky and cold!

So think if it as spending £35k to get some usable space?

I woudl do B.

[grasspigeons]

My friend took down the conservatory and the got a very posh shed at the back of the garden to replace the space. They use it loads as a kids playroom basically. It was cheaper than 25 more 8k

[Falcon1]

Thing is, we are currently using the conservatory as a dining room and would really miss having a space large enough for us all to sit and eat. The smaller extension would just about allow us to fit in a table but it'd be a squeeze.

The conservatory is south facing and just not sure any conservatory solution (special glass etc) would lead to a usable space in the summer.

[YourDandDaddy]

Agree replace conservatory. TGHey have come a long way in the last 20 years

[YourDandDaddy]

Just seen it is south facing/you use as a dining room. Check out the ultraframe livin' roof. More like an extension with a large sky light, but actually a conservatory. I think it should come in under 30 k, depending on the size. Still much cheaper/lighter than an extension though

[butterfly56]

Tiled roof conservatory would be a good option.

[Toooldtobearsed]

We have literally just replaced our old wooden conservatory with a brand spanking new one 😊

7.5m x 3.5, 2 sets of doors and every window opens to take care of the really hot weather we get in this country in the summer 😄😄 and 2 gel filled electric radiators for the cold weather.

Just waiting for the flooring to be done next week to finish it off, but we have been living in it for the past week!

We paid 22k for the whole job and it is brilliant!

[Falcon1]

Thanks Toooldtobearsed. I guess yours is too new to tell how well insulated/good at keeping out the heat it is yet.

Has anyone got a modern conservatory that is south facing and is neither too hot/too cold? And what about sound insulation? I don't like being able to hear the trains/planes when we're in that room.

[StripyBlanket]

We are going down the extension route and the main reason is because we don't want external doors between the proper house and what is currently the conservatory. Although the conservatory company said we could remove the doors and tart up the conservatory, a long chat with building control said otherwise.

[StripyBlanket]

But I will be interested in hearing what others say!

[JoJoSM2]

A conservatory will never be as nice or sturdy as a proper extension. I'd apply for a permission and see if I could get that.

[Falcon1]

Yes JoJo, that's what I'm thinking. And I'd be worried that we'd spend all this money on a fancy conservatory, only to be dissatisfied with it.

Still, if we do a small extension we get less house and will have money to do everything else that needs doing....AARGH!

Interesting what you say about building control Stripy. Strangely, Everest didn't mention anything about doors when they gave us a conservatory quote!

[GU24Mum]

Unless you want to move, why pay all of those costs (Stamp Duty, removals, legal fees etc) just to make a house smaller - to be honest, you can do that by taking down the existing conservatory for a fraction of the money!

Once you've made that decision, I guess it depends on your budget. We've been living with an ancient Wickes conservatory ever since we moved in - every time it rains hard, it lets a bit of water in somewhere slightly different and we're hoping to replace it (still can't decide.....) before it falls down!

[WhoseGonnaDriveUHomePorkPie]

Everest are expensive-a local firm would probably quote much cheaper for a conservatory.
Also it might be worth getting quotes for extensions, we recently paid less than £30k for a lovely garden room to replace conservatory, easily big enough for dining table and chairs plus sofa. Definitely better value than moving house.

[BubblesBuddy]

We have a large oak framed orangery and that was less than £90k. It is my kitchen and I use it all year round with no problem. High spec glazing is vital as is underfloor heating. Just being warm near a radiator is not so good in winter. (Had that previously!) We face East and have doors that open, roof that opens and windows too! The house is open plan so air flows. These buildings are not cheap and an extension would have been cheaper but the orangery is wow and light floods in. I think you should do something but if you have a conservatory, don't go cheap. You will not be able to use it year round.

[Twopeapods]

My parents just had a real roof put on their conservatory, not one of the lightweight guardian types. It was a local roofing company and they installed a skylight. The whole job was £5K and it's now just like a normal room. Doesn't get too hot or too cold. Maybe worth a look into?

[Falcon1]

Twopeapods, that's interesting. Was their existing structure strong enough for a real roof then? I can't imagine ours would be - it looks pretty unsubstantial.

[guilty100]

Before going ahead with a conservatory, I would look into the costs of a very cheap timber-frame extension on the same footprint. Adding a small room should cost a lot less than £90k.

[Alicetherabbit]

How big is it, we had a 6*4 metre extension done in London, for less than 40k.