What's the crack with conservatories? What am I doing wrong?

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All my adult life I've wanted a conservatory, and at the grand old age of nearly 40 I finally have one.

But it's either freezing cold (can't open it when it's cold because it freezes the living room as though we have opened the door to the garden). And in when it's sunny (like right now) it's so hot I feel like I might die in there (but my god my washing dries quickly).

What am I doing wrong?
In the summer it's going to be an oven.

That's a conservatory I'm afraid.
You can get covers to limit the sun. We have one on our crappy kitchen extension (koala shades). It's made a massive difference.

You're not going wrong. That's what conservatories are like and why they fallen out of fashion.

The only people I know who enjoy theirs have all had their roof changed over into a tiles and plasterboard type roof rather than a pvc window roof.

Yes, you'll have to spend the same amount as the build cost on window/roof blinds

The cost of a conservatory is often half the price of an extension. Which in itself is more than twice as useful.

You're discovering why they're not that popular. My mum describes hers as a £20k clothes dryer...

Weren't they originally for growing plants? Like a greenhouse, only posh enough to also house some wicker furniture?

As others have said this is what they are like , they are a plastic shed . What did you imagine they would be like ?

Yep, welcome to life with a conservatory. They went out of fashion for a good reason!

My grandparents used to have one and they had the roof tiled over which at least made it slightly more bearable to sit in with the doors open in summer, but mostly it was left unused.

Ours came with the house, we use it to put the Christmas tree in in the winter and as a green house to grow seeds at this time of year but otherwise it gets no use.... Our long term aim is to replace it with a single storey extension.

We just knocked ours down. It was here when we moved in 10 years ago. Pointless things. We're now building a proper room.

We added a conservatory to the south-facing garden side of our house in the mid 90s. My mother-in-law asked at the time, "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer an extension?"
It is a pain in the bum; like yours it is insufferably hot in the summer and arctic in winter. It also diminishes the light to the interior of the house too.
I have (secret) plans to demolish it and have a pergola instead.

Ok, well the roof is very old and needs changing. So perhaps we could change it to something better?

Our house has a conservatory added by a previous owner.

We've got an electric fire for the winter. In the Spring/Autumn I take my morning coffee in with a blanket and listen to the birds. It does get really hot in summer but wouldn't you want to be outside then anyway?

We changed our roof to a tiled one as mentioned above and it’s sooooo much better! I’d never get a glass or Perspex type roof.
Ours feels more like a proper room now, in fact we have no extra heating or air conditioning out there.....heat from our wood burner in the lounge in the winter and door open in summer, lovely!

Agree with all the above comments. We had one in our last house. Was a useful clothes drying and toy storage room. And functioned as a dining room for maybe 3 weeks of the year when the weather was just so...

We did manage to use it as a playroom when we had a house ful- would whack fan and oil radiator in there to warm it up.

Would never build one. It used to make the house unbearably hot in the summer too.

Sorry OP. Hope you can get some blinds/insulated roof or something to make it bearable.

We just knocked ours down.

I'm not sure I could bring myself to do that just yet, it's so pretty to look at, and it brings so much light into the living room.

Knocking it down would massively reduce the space but an extension would massively reduce the light.

I knew someone who had quite a small house and added a conservatory to use as a dining room. She was gutted when it was basically unusable, God love her.

Was a useful clothes drying and toy storage room.
That's exactly what ours is being used for...

Hmm, we have one and it’s one of our favourite rooms. In the winter it’s cold except on sunny days where the sun does actually warm it. We also have a small radiator in it too so if you put that on on a sunny, winter day it’s lovely. Ours has that stuff on the roof which stops it getting too hot in the summer? We leave the French doors leading to the living room open and it’s a perfect warm temperature. We also have a ceiling fan but we’ve never used it. The conservatory was already here when we bought the house but I think it was a very expensive one just by how it’s built, it’s stylish for a conservatory and like I say, not too cold in the winter and not too hot in the summer.

It used to make the house unbearably hot in the summer too.

Yes to this.
It's making our living room unbelievably hot.

Ours has that stuff on the roof which stops it getting too hot in the summer?

Can you elaborate? We need to change the roof so I'd love to know.

There was a Victoria wood sketch "not trying to sell you anything, but would you like a massive plastic box tacked onto the side of your house. Would you like to sit on wicker furniture in full vue of the neighbours"

I love hot but I grew up in Hong Kong. I have a north facing conservatory, the PVC roof type. It is 27C in there now and I love it. That’s like normal temperature. it’s hard to get this warm even in the south coast of England.

I think an extension is better however.

MIL has a small extension with big windows right around it, all the light and sun benefits and none of the conservatory downsides. I think it's what we'll do when we have the funds,more a sun room type thing.

We have radiator in ours too and ceiling fan. I don’t use the fan but the radiator isn’t hot enough for my taste.