To ask your advice re conservatory upgrade

[snapdragongirl]

Our house has a large brick built conservatory, it’s a great space but is so cold in winter and hot in summer, it isn’t a very usable room. It is off our living room and could offer an additional reception space if it weren’t so cold/hot, although it’s questionable how much we’d actually use it as it doesn’t have privacy from the living room (double glass doors) and I suspect we would still mainly use the living room to sit in, watch telly etc.

We are currently looking to replace our windows so asked the company for a quote to upgrade the conservatory as well - all new windows, doors and a proper tiled roof. It would be classed as an extension once done. The quote for the conservatory was over £60k! This seems a huge amount of money to spend on a room we might not actually use that much, just to make it a bit nicer and to match with the new windows.

So I’m thinking of other options, eg could we just put a new roof on? Would this make a significant difference to the temperature? I think most heat is lost through the roof rather than the windows (roof is nasty corrugated plastic type material, windows are double glazed although at least 20-25 years old and probably not the best). Could this be a cheaper but still effective solution?

Much as the upgraded conservatory looks so much better in the pictures we’ve seen, I’m just not sure we can justify spending £60k on what feels like an “extra” room. We plan to stay here a good few years yet, so we would have the benefit of the work and I suspect it would make the house more saleable in the long term, but would it be better to do something cheaper with the roof and save the money for something that we would feel more benefit from (eg new bathrooms)?

Has anyone done a conservatory roof upgrade and felt it was worthwhile?

I’d shop around just for a roof on it . Get lots of quotes . It would make a big difference.

Thank you, I think we will do just that and speak to some other companies.

Has anyone else just replaced the roof on a conservatory and able to comment on the difference it made?

We are doing something similar in our house and we’ve been quoted around £30k to upgrade the roof, add skylights/french doors and then reconfigure the walls in the kitchen/dining room (our utility is currently in the conservatory so want to move it back). The quote includes the required steels where we’re removing walls but not electrics/plumbing - we are also stripping everything out ourselves.

Edited to say we’ve had 3 quotes for local builders, all between £28-£34k. We are in the south west.

Thank you! We would also need to have glass panels in the roof to allow light into the living room. Doors to garden could do with replacing (although would be hard to match to existing windows). But no other structural work etc.

Our conservatory was already 2 full walls and 2 dwarf walls, one which was the kitchen wall and the other with patio door on to the garden.

We had the polycarbonate roof replaced a couple of years ago with a flat roof with skylight. Its made a massive difference to temperature.

I love it as a room now, the only downside is that the kitchen is darker but I can live with that for the conservatory being usable all year round

We replaced our plastic conservatory roof with a glass one and it’s made a big difference. Less hot in the summer and less cold in winter as the glass is insulated and tinted blue. Ours is off our kitchen so we needed to keep light coming in. Cost about £8k about 5 years ago and we’re really happy we did it.

When we bought our house over 10 years ago, the conservatory was such a drawback it nearly made us not buy it. We’re finally knocking it down, adding a proper room and reconfiguring the downstairs but, tbh, I wish we’d just knocked it down when we moved in. Like yours it was unusable for 50 weeks of the year. It also made garden access more faffy and the kitchen dark. I wouldn’t buy another house with a conservatory if I could possibly avoid it, so in your shoes I wouldn’t spend any more money on it, I’d knock it down and enjoy the extra garden. Sorry, no help.

I have 2 heaters that I use in Winter and had blinds fitted that absorb some of the heat in Summer. It is my favourite room from Spring .

My neighbours had a flat fibreglass roof put on their conservatory a few years ago, unfortunately they won't tell us how much it cost..it had 2 roof lanterns but is incredibly dark, even on a bright summer's day..we inherited a conservatory,dwarf brick walls, replaced the roof 10 years ago,it cost £8k. It's now raised glass,was a plastic lean to. The conservatory is 21x11 feet. How big are your conservatories? Our back garden faces north but it's a detached bungalow,so the sun goes over the roof (it's just starting now the days are getting longer) 2 radiators,air cooler, it does reach 40c in summer,we have a proper portable air conditioning unit..it's full of plants from October to April. Our dining table is in there,a couple of easy chairs and coffee table,we used it,most of the year. When I go into our south facing living room on a cloudy day like today,it's really dark in there.

Oh, yes,we have kookaburra shade blinds,its all we could afford because of the size.

Our conservatory was half brick walls and off our lounge , we had it knocked down and built an extension in the same place thus making our lounge bigger and lighter as the extension has a pitched roof with velux windows .

I’ve got to be honest, we had a “warm roof” put on the conservatory and although it’s made it useable in the summer (was way too hot before) it hasn’t really made it warmer in the winter. They left our glass roof in place, put insulation on the inside and a panelled upvc ceiling with spotlights in, and lightweight tiles on the outside.

We had exactly the same as you and chose new windows, a fully tiled and fully insulated roof with two electric Velux windows. It’s made a massive difference. For only a couple of weeks a year when it’s really cold do we close it off from the kitchen.

I had a company that specialises in conservatory roofs to replace ours with a lightweight insulated roof.

it’s amazing, it’s transformed the room. I work from it every day and there is only a slight drop in temperature from the main house.

stapletonesguitar,DH has debated this route
How big is the conservatory,how much,how long ago?

Sounds exactly like ours, we have three rads though. Used everyday all year round. Only time it gets stupid hot is if the temp is 30+ ...... but the rest of the place is pretty warm too then!

We replaced our plastic conservatory roof with a glass one and it’s made a big difference. Less hot in the summer and less cold in winter as the glass is insulated and tinted blue. Ours is off our kitchen so we needed to keep light coming in.
This. MN is funny about conservatories, I think they are all harking back to what their parents (or grandparents!) had 30/40 years ago.
Glass roofs are a game changer: they are better insulated, reduce glare, self-cleaning, quieter. Conservatories and extensions fall under different building regs and, as you have found, have vastly different prices.
Link

Replaced conservatory roof 2 years ago, was £8k, its a pigmented glass which reflects uv rays and means it stays cooler. It has central heating so being too cold is not an issue.

How much would it cost to replace it with a good proper extension? Id price that up before deciding on a refurb.

A warm roof shouldn’t need new frames, the existing are used and a lightweight roof is fitted in place of the glass or polycarbonate that you already have. 60k is ludicrous, around 15k I would say for an average size conservatory.

We bought a house with a conservatory with patio doors between it and kitchen ;the roof leaked so replaced with a new glass one at about £6k. Was supposed to make cooler in Summer and warmer in Winter. It was actually useable for about 6 weeks of the year and became a dumping ground. Just demolished it and replaced with small extension, velux windows. We’re in the SW too, cost about £38,000 (VAT is a shock!). I wouldn’t waste money on trying to sort an oldish conservatory.

We did exactly that @snapdragongirl - our garden room extension had a rubbish triple walled polycarbonate roof on it, boiling in summer and freezing in winter. It actually melted in the heatwave of 2018 and the aluminium struts inside for structural stablility pierced through the softened plastic and made holes in it. So we were forced to replace the roof sooner than we wanted. It cost around £6k for taking off the old roof, debris removal from site, new insulated roof with LED lights and replastering.

It has made a big difference but as our room (illegally) has no doors between it and the adjoining rooms, nor any heating, it's still really cold in winter. Lovely in summer though!

We recently insulated the roof in our conservatory, and it has made a big difference. It’s still not quite as warm as the rest of the house, but with the addition of a small electric heater, it’s perfectly comfortable to use in the current weather. It will be interesting to see how much of an improvement we notice in the summer.

It’s not perfect, but for £3k we now have a usable extra room. DS loves playing there, and we spend most of our evenings and weekends in there. I’ve moved all his toys from the living room into the conservatory and turned it into a lovely playroom. I’m really pleased with the result.

Yes. It was the very best thing we ever did.

We are SW facing and it was cold in winter and hot in summer. Not now. It is just perfect.

We had a roof put in like this
https://www.ultraframe-conservatories.co.uk/replacement-roofs/solid-roofs

We didn't use this company but it was a similar roof. It's probably 8 years ago now, and we use our conservatory all the time. Perfect temp. And the fact the roof inside is plastered just makes it feel like another room. I can't remember the exact price, maybe £10k, no more

We replaced our hideous plastic conservatory roof recently with a proper tiled roof and it has made a massive difference to the temperature. We live in the Highlands so it's not the warmest place at the best of times, but we've been able to use the conservatory as a second living room this winter as it's just as warm as the rest of the house.

I think it cost about 10k all in, but that included plastering, painting etc. We kept the doors, windows etc as they were as they're still sturdy enough.