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.

Mine is South facing. It really is shockingly hot in there on a sunny day. I worry about the dog getting in there without us noticing.

I added a timber & glass conservatory with brick hip walls to a Victorian house in around 2001. It was wonderful & the most used room in the house. It did not need central heating as it got heat from adjoining rooms, but we used Pilkington K glass for the roof, which helped to mediate the temperature. Cost around £20-25k. Worth every penny.
I then used the same company to put a garden room extension on my present house. The roof is about 60% solid & the remainder is a roof lantern, also Pilkington k glass. You can get self- cleaning glass. In this one we have underfloor heating. Also well-used & architecturally transformed the house. Cost a lot more than the first one.
Moral: you get what you pay for.

Ours is used as a second loving room and playroom for the kids when it is warm enough (basically any season except winter). A portable heater works fine on the rare occasions we do want to use it in winter (eg at Christmas as it is essentially an extension to our dining room when the doors are open ).

We are particularly glad of a second living space right now. Means I can facetime friends in the conservatory while DP watches TV or vice versa.

I really like our conservatory. It is too cold in the winter. We have had radiators for a while but they haven't been installed yet! In the warm weather it gets very hot as it faces south. It is ok if you open the door and windows. I like sitting in there as we are not overlooked. I especially like sitting in there when it is raining. I had a nice snooze in there today. I am recovering from covid 19 so feel quite tired. Only thing I would say is they do need maintenance. i e windows and doors need adjusting or they won't open or close properly. OH does that so costs nothing otherwise I imagine it could be expensive.

Love mine.... now.

When we moved in it was a crappy lean to that soon leaked and was 200000 degrees or -30000 ,degrees. Used as a dumping ground or washing drying room.

Finally got money together to replace. Solar glass for the roof and double glazed. A heater and electric points and a light. I bloody love it. It's a playroom really and really saves the rest of the house!

Bloody fab. But you need it to be right.

Mine is tiny, not much more than a lean-to, but I love it. Think if it like an extension to the garden, rather than one to the house, someone once told me, and they were right. It's too hot in the middle of a sunny day - but then I'd sit outside anyway; and too cold to use in the winter but I'd rather be cosy indoors then. Enjoy it on sunny spring and autumn days when its just that bit too cold or windy to sit outside, or on summer evenings when the heat of the day has passed.
When it's hot like today, I fling open the doors to the garden as soon as I get up, and leave them open unless, to stop the heat building. I replaced the door between house and conservatory with a secure, external standard one, so I can leave the conservatory open if I need to pop out briefly.

The thing you are doing wrong is having a conservatory. They are poorly insulated lean to greenhouses. They are comfortable to be in for a whole 3 days a year.

I bloody hate mine. It was there when we bought the house and if I don't move like I wanted pre Covid then the conservatory is going and I'm adding a useful building instead.

Too hot.
Too cold.
Too spidery.

@BurnIt could you possibly show me which ones?

We found some reflective panels last night but they are £150 each, we'll spend the money but we are worried we will spend the money and we'll still have the same issue.

We can't afford to knock it down for a few years.

We had underfloor heating installed when ours was built 20 years ago. Not electric underfloor heating but tubes of water heated and run off our gas boiler.
It's lovely and warm in the winter - and the cats love to sleep on the warm ceramic tiles!
In the summer we just open the windows.

Wow so much hatred we had one in our last house and when we moved to this house the plan was always to put one up as has become so used to having one.

We put one up last year it’s not very big and cost almost £20k so they’re not even cheap but we love it.

Now the weather is better we eat out there every lunchtime with the kids, a lot of their crap is out there out of the way too

Figgy I agree with you. I don’t understand the hatred. I love mine

We have a sunroom too - full brick walls on two sides, doors and windows on other and a tiled roof with Velux. It's amazing - use it all year round. It's my favourite room in our home now x

For those that replaced the glass or Perspex type roof and tiled over it , how much roughly was this ?

Very interested in doing this to mine , I don't dislike my conservatory too much , mine has a full brick wall on one side, a dwarf wall round the rest and full size radiator so with the roof done would be more like an extension than a conservatory.

We inherited one with the house, it was an unusable 90s monstrosity. During other house renovations we had a proper insulated roof with a helix window put on, triple glazed windows and the brick base insulated. It is now a ‘garden room’ and can be used all year round, never needs heating joined to the dining room as one long room. It cost 16k to renovate though, not sure I’d bother if I was doing it from scratch

Has anyone tried these?

I've been bitching about it being cold but we have a large radiator in there and double glazing, it's only because the weather is better that we haven't needed the heating on.

Anyway, our mission really is to reduce the heat.

Has anyone tried these?

I've measured and done the maths and it will cost £150 to do the windows (the panels for the roof will be about £400).

Is it worth getting these film covers for the windows?

We love ours and it is getting loads of use this year.
It is 13 years old and had good quality reflective glass.
It backs onto our dining room which makes 'management of it easier.

To stop it heating the dining room we close the dining room curtains when neither room is in use.
We open the small windows and door to stop it over heating.
We have a small fan heater that heats it up in ~10 minutes if we want to use it in winter.
It is rubbish for zoom calls though

A conservatory can really devalue a property, people will knock down an asking price because they have to factor in either improving the insulation or knocking it down.

A garden room or orangery would be great! I just don't see the point in spending lots of money to improve a plastic structure that has a limited number of years life. If you can do it cheaply OP then that sounds like a compromise until you can replace it.

No sorry this is the one I meant

@PragmaticWench thanks for your input.

How would I change it into a garden room or orangery?
Im wondering if it's not worth spending the money on the plastic as well.

I adore mine. Its got our dinning table and a couple of settles in it. In the winter, I just pop the little heater on ten minutes before we want to use it and it heats up lovely and at night, I'll sit under a throw.

I don't know what way it faces but I'm sitting in it now and the sun is shining on it so it is hot but I could open the doors and window if I was too hot, and by mid day it will be in shade

I am saving up for some blinds as my husband thinks people can see in. It's one full brick wall and then 2 half brick half window walls and the roof is like a corrigated perspex stuff, don't know if that helps with the heat or not.

I hope the conservatory doesn't have a shelf life, as it was built before we move in and I'd miss it if it wasn't here/needed replacing.

Our house has one and it is cold in winter and hot in summer but we use it as a dining room/play room most of the year. I have an electric heater and put rugs down in there in winter and a ceiling fan and blinds for the summer. When we have the money its getting a proper roof.

Yours is the opposite of ours.

Ours is in the shade right now and will have sun pelting through midday.

No brick walls and windows all the way round.

I love mine, but it is more like a “garden room” as described above, bottom half is brickwork and it has a normal roof with slates

Our next door neighbours (semi, identical house to ours) have a glass conservatory with glass roof bd it is too hot for them when sunny, and too cold in winter

The type of roof makes a huge difference

Felt like that with mine originally which was here when we moved in but now

In warm days is lovely to open inside door only up to warm up rest of house and also to sit in when outside too cool so enjoy .. feels like holiday 😂

Hot days is great to have both doors open and sit in there

Winter it’s an expensive storeage space 😂