Conservatories are they worth getting

[kylie122]

How often do you use yours ? Am thinking about getting one

I’ve never had one and if I had to choose to spend money on the house it would not even be in my list. PIL have one, it’s covered in cobwebs, in the summer you go in and are greeted by scores of dead flies. They do use it a lot as they use it as a dining room/second lounge, but it’s not really something I would like. I can only base my opinion on the few I’ve been in, but not one of them have left me thinking I’d want one.

Ours was either freezing or boiling. When I looked at the folder of stuff the previous owners had left I was shocked at how expensive it was- not much less than an actual extension which would have been so much more useful.
We replaced it with an extension which was upsetting as it was relativity new and felt so wasteful.

And dead flies.
So many dead flies and the windows always looked dirty.

I wouldn’t recommend, cold most of the year and then too hot in summer. A proper extension is so much better. We are house hunting at the moment and actively avoiding anything with a conservatory!

We had a huge 4m x 6m one at our old house. Unusable for most of the year, south facing garden meant ferociously hot in Summer and bitterly cold in winter. It was handy for storage and nice in the milder months.
We have a smaller one at our new house and it has a roof on rather than plastic and it is much more usable. North facing garden means it'll be more comfortable in the Summer.

We have one, it was here when we bought the house. It's essential space as it's our dining & play room but I hate it.

It's not cold but that's because we have a massive radiator in there which is so expensive. It gets waaaay too hot in the summer, limits ventilation to the rest of the house and feels like a barrier to the garden.

If you possibly can get a proper extension. You can have decent insulation to manage the temperature and plenty of glazing if light is limited.

We had one when I was a teenager that was partly stone built (bottom half) & the upper half was all windows. In summer it was quite warm but we would just open all the windows, it was quite useful for drying washing even on the rainiest days. TBH if you didn't open the windows it was absolutely baking in there. Make sure you've got really good window locks so you can leave them open a tiny bit when you go out in hot weather.
In winter it was fairly warm if the sun was out as it was fully south facing. Apparently it used to reduce the heating bills somewhat. Sometimes we'd get the dining table through & eat Christmas dinner in there. However we had quite thick curtains for cold winter days, as well as doors to keep the cold air out on cold days. I'd definitely have another one if DH & I owned our current house. But I'd get a proper roof instead of a plastic one, much nicer - a plastic roof is likely to leak sooner & they all collect leaves, algae etc, which you can see through a plastic roof, it's not attractive!

Ours (south facing) was lovely for about one week in spring and one in autumn but was mostly a mortuary for insects. Soooo many dead insects. We replaced it with a proper extension

We have one that came with the house. It gets its main use in spring and autumn. It's too hot in summer and too cold in winter. It does have a radiator but I've never used it because of expense considerations.

It is nice on cool but sunny days to sit in there when it's 'artificially' warm.

Our cats love it in there even when it's far too hot for us!

Also found it a handy place to use our old sofa, armchairs and coffee table when we replaced the ones in the living room.

We moved into a property with one. Awful thing and I can't wait to convert it. We can't use it from November to March as it is freezing (they went with tiled floor and no underfloor heating). There is a radiator but as it is quite a large space we would have to heat the rest of the house to an unbearable temperature to get it warm in the conservatory. I resent it every time I look at it! Consider getting an extension with a roof instead.

We had a non-heated one, waste of space but didn't want to stay long enough in the house to build one from scratch/replace it with a proper extension.

Friends just decided to tear theirs down and do a proper extension with skylights and a decent insulated french door wall leading to the garden.

We looked into it, decided against an extension in the end for various reasons, but a typical conservatory wasn't the end plan at all and all the companies we spoke to didn't really recommended them.

ILs have one and it put me right off. Freezing in winter, boiling in summer, glass / plastic roof gets absolutely filthy, ends up being a dumping ground / storage room. If you can afford it get a proper extension instead, we did and it's the best thing we did to our house.

I don't use mine in the freezing winter, but it is lovely in the spring and some of summer apart from those boiling hot days. I get a lot of use out of it overall.

I'd like one. My kitchen/living area is lower ground floor and a bit dim, and I have this notion that a conservatory might raise the general light levels. I could easily be wrong though.
But I'd still like one if only to use as porch/boot room/utility space as we don't have anything like that.

Our house had one, made the room it came off really dark and was always freezing or boiling and OMG the flies and cobwebs... I sold it on eBay and our house is so much lighter now.

Nope, our house already had one built but I'd never build one. It's south facing so blocks a lot of light from our living room. That is kind of useful in that it means I don't have the sun in my eyes, but I also could have just used curtains for that and taken advantage of the natural light most of the time. Ours is brick all the way along the bottom with windows above and very narrow patio doors at the end. The patio doors are so narrow it feels like you have to open them both to get out comfortably. It's bloody freezing a lot of the time and unbearably hot in summer. We don't heat it or anything as we don't use it as a room. I'd resent spending all that money for the heat to float right out of the plastic roof. In the summer, it means I can't cool down my living room or get any kind of through draft. The patio doors leading the the conservatory are the only windows in the living room, but opening them up to get some air in means allowing all of the heat from the conservatory into the living room. If I go in there in summer, the heat actually takes my breath away. The previous owner seemed to use it as a dining room! No idea how she coped with that. It also means I can't see my garden from the living room and that really annoys me. The only view is a load of mess/toys/storage. I've tried to make it look as tidy as possible but it's still never going to be pleasant to look at.

We use ours purely as a storage area. Well, my husband keeps his amp out there and plays guitar in there sometimes of an evening (with headphones on) but it's not very comfortable. I tried using it as a place to start seeds but it was way too hot and weirdly enough, I couldn't get enough decent light. Starting seeds on the windowsills meant that they were scorched by the sun and there isn't really enough light in the centre as the roof is one of those cloudy ones to stop glare. We just get loads of dead bugs in there. Oh, and ants build huge nests in the gap between the conservatory and house and it is vile. They get into our living room on a regular basis.

I think they’re a bit dated and old hat now. Often used as storage areas.

I would opt for a proper extension which is designed to let in plenty of light

In my experience conservatories aren't usable for much of the year so not a good use of space or investment

Our house had a conservatory when we bought it which we ended up demolishing and had the lounge extended into the same space instead. The extended lounge is 100 times more practical and usable than the conservatory was. I just used it as a dumping ground for toys when the DC were small but it was usually too cold or too hot to spend time in

Yes to the flies 🤮

Get a proper roof on it with a sky light which may make it more useable otherwise I wouldn’t bother.

Nope, crap to sit in on hot and cold days. We had one in our previous house and it was rarely used.

Much better to invest in a properly built sunroom/garden room. Ours is 30ft x12ft and has a fully insulated roof with a large sealed window in the roof, same as in our kitchen. It’s the most used room in the house and helps to heat the rest of the house on a sunny day. It’s currently 22° in here with no heating on. We’ll put the heating on around 5pm when the light starts to drop.

Because it’s so large and is open plan into the dining room and kitchen, it never gets too hot either. Everyone who visits loves it.

Every day, it's our day room and we go in the lounge on an evening. It gets quite messy as toys come in from the playroom but it's a lovely place to hang out. I have to say tho, in heat waves it's kind of rank

Weirdly it never gets too cold tho

We have a garden room. It used to have a plastic roof but that started to degrade some years ago and finally melted and collapsed in the heatwave of 2018. We have replaced it with a proper insulated roof with downlighters in; prior to that night lighting was via a few wall lights.

It was never quite a conservatory as the side wall to the neighbours is solid with a row of narrow windows near the roof, picture windows at the end and patio doors to the other side. It's open to the dining room and kitchen so when it gets cold so do they. Our is utterly rubbish even with the new roof on, as it wasn't built to building regs and one day we will pull it down and just extend properly.

If you are going to have a conservatory, I would look at the aspect you have (south facing will get very hot in summer), what use you want for it, how you are going to heat it. How much will it cost to heat and to install heating? The more glass you have the brighter and hotter it will be, obviously, so would it be more prudent to have a sun room/garden room, where you have lots of windows and French/patio doors but a solid, insulating roof? That's usually a good compromise.

We inherited one, I'd prefer an extension but not enough to cough up the cash. We use it loads though. It is a decent size with blinds on all windows including the roof and has a heater/air con in it which doesn't cost that much to run. It's great when friends with children come over as we sit in there and the kids get all the toys out and play in the other room (which we can see from the conservatory). On hot days it's nice to get a cold drink and sit in for 15 minutes. The dog likes lying on the tiles and it's good for drying washing out of the main living space (we use an electric dryer in winter).

If you have space for a conservatory then I would consider building a proper extension. My parents just replaced their conservatory with an extension, as the conservatory was freezing in the winter and sweltering in the summer. They use the extension all year round and have been able to utilise the space a lot better now.