AIBU to think people following home trends such as glass lanterns regret this now

[noggla]

Those who have done extensions in their kitchens etc that put glass lanterns and/or floor to ceiling glass walls without any openings. They must have been regretting these plus other things that warm homes unintentionally.

Our house has a similar orientation. Love our bifolds and lantern.The sun is only on the back of the house until 1 ish also next door has a lovely feathery leaved tree that casts some shade on us

Lanterns and veluxes are usually not installed ti follow a trend. They sre where it is an architectural necessity to bring natural light in.
Also if you have opening windows invyour lantern, it acts like a chimney drawing hot air up and out of the house and is a cooling feature.

Why do you care op?

I'm not sure, which is why I asked...I just feel when they show them open ...across the whole rear of a house anything would wander in...plus thinking about it...the local fly population...and solar gain may be protected as others have said ...how is UV limited?

Dd2 has a glass lantern in her kitchen/dining room. It opens and has a blind. I think it suits the area.

However, once this summer passes it will be usable again

I hate to break it to you, but climate change isn't going 'to pass'.

I am aware, I literally meant this summer we are having this year. Then we can use it again until next summer, where hopefully I'll have done the additions I mentioned and we might be able to use it a bit more.

You could say that about 95% of the threads on MN!

We got bifolds fitted and velux windows on the roof last year, and I have to say I regret it! Our garden is north facing, so I doubt we’re even experiencing half of what people who have south facing gardens will be going through. My little kitchen used to be so cool 😭 I’d definitely rethink things if I were to renovate again

I don’t think they are a “trend” as such. I do think if designed well they can really improve a space. I had a small kitchen extension added to my small Victorian terrace and it has transformed the space. It has a large skylight and bifold doors. It’s actually quite cool for most of the day.

what is most unsuited to the U.K. climate is traditional conservatories. Too hot in the summer, too cold in winter.

I've got a glass lantern in my kitchen extension as it was the only way to get light in down the side. The kitchen is still the coolest room in the house. Admittedly it's not a huge lantern, and maybe it's thermal glass?

No, not really. Our lantern roof gives lots of light. When its too hot I just draw the thermal blinds and curtains 🤷🏽‍♀️

I also have a flat roof conversion with no roof lantern and even that gets sweltering. Occasionally I consider painting it white!

Yes we had to have our flat roof extension re covered this year and the new stuff used is quite dark, seems daft when light colour would reflect the heat much better! Paint unfortunately wouldn’t last with all the sun and rain but I believe there is a white anti slip coating you can put on.

We did a whole home renovation finishing Feb 2025 which included a huge lantern, a wide bifold, a picture window in the area where the lantern is and a window above the sink in our flat roof extension. Also have retained a massive garden (which we’re currently having renovated).

We also had air conditioning installed in all bedrooms.

The place was an absolute shithole before and is now a stunning mid-century accented palace (thanks to our designer), even if the extension is a little warm in this unprecedented heat. Also loads of gorgeous light in the area of the lantern and other windows.

I don’t regret any of it for a second.

Hmm I don’t think having a glass lantern is blindly following trends. For us it was to get more light in to the extension. It would be very dark in winter without it.

I think we can discuss this without being nasty. I am moving house, before this summer I was planning on opening up the kitchen with another glass lantern roof and maybe crital doors. It is SW facing so now I’ve realised that would be a huge mistake so I’m sticking to the little velux with a blind and French doors. Be cooler in the summer but I am worried it will be quite dark in winter.

It’s more about people adapting house designs if this is going to become the norm in summer.

When renovating we went with 4 very large velux instead of flat roof/latern option but at the time that was only because two friends with laterns were having awful fly problems and/or leak issues. I know they can have blinds fitted too.

Our velux windows have automatic blinds and they have been down most of the summer to help keep the room cool.

We also chose 5m and 2m tilt and turn glass doors (sort of a slde/bi fold hybrid) and they cost a lot and I was thinking we will only ever use the access dorrs, but its been blimmin' lovely this year and whole of the back of the house has been opened up most days for the last 10 weeks.

So in that regard...no...I love all the glass!

It is pretty nuts to change your house into a greenhouse.

Boiling hot in summer, freezing cold in winter.

However it seems to be on trend for people with lots of money. I guess the same people can afford considerable air con and heating bills, or to decamp somewhere cooler in the summer.

We often have a crap summer - this is the first time it has given me food for thought and I’ve had the glass lantern for ten years.

I had a South facing extension completed in December that has 2 huge glass panels in the roof and multiple glass doors and panels in the south facing wall. We had to have solar gain/heat loss calculations done as part of planning process and that determined the amount of glass we could have. The glass in the wall all has blinds. I was a bit concerned that the solar gain would be insane in these temps. However it hasn’t been - yesterday it was 36°C outside and 26°C in the extension. The extension replaced a crappy conservatory that would reach 50°C in direct sunlight. Building regs are supposed to take heat loss and gain into account.

We've lots of glass (not put in by us) but we use blinds and curtains and our kitchen actually stays very cool despite it (tiled and the sun is mainly on the other side). I imagine most people have just put blinds up, no? Or got air con which we have in our bedrooms and it's life changing

We have electric roller blinds on our large glass walls, they are controlled via an app where I’ve set them to come up/down to a schedule. So on our SW facing facade they drop at noon, on the NW facing facade at 3pm when the sun has moved across. Works well, didn’t cost a bomb, and I don’t regret our choices at all. Our roof light doesn’t have a blind but we could retrofit one if it bothered us enough (it doesn’t). It does open which I’m happy about, definitely recommend electric opening roof lights rather than fixed ones.

What is lantern??

We decided against huge sliding patio doors, floor to ceiling windows, huge open plan kitchen/living areas etc., many years ago after we stayed in a few UK holiday lettings with them. We absolutely hated them and realised how impractical they were. Such as having to open a huge heavy bi folding door just to put the rubbish in the bin, or when you open them, your house ends up full of flies, and other flying insects. In one holiday home, we actually counted over a hundred flies that we'd squashed in the couple of days after we foolishly opened the doors for a couple of hours one sunny afternoon! We soon realised that the huge open plan areas are a nightmare to keep warm in winter and cool in Summer. Give us "normal" separate rooms any day, along with normal doors (we may accept a double patio door as a compromise!).

I don't care what other people do.

Why would anyone care? The answer is envy.

I expect if they're hot, they can afford to buy air con.. Oh, sorry, that will make you even more envious! Rich people, eh? How very dare they spend money on nice houses!

You're just that awful neighbour that objects to every single Planning Application...

Yeah, we owned a large victorian house about 15 years ago that had a 1m x 1m square window in the ceiling above the stairwell. Above that in the roof was a similarly sized skylight, so light flooded the staircase...lovely!