Heating (and cooling) a conservatory

[erinaceus]

Dear MNetters,

In March I moved into an adorable property where I am happy. The property was built in the 80s and has been extended in the mid-90s via a little conservatory. In my wisdom I decided to use the conservatory as a study / creative space (think: studio) and have furnished accordingly.

Trouble is it is bloody freezing. I am most productive in the early hours of the morning and my fingers are icy. There is no heating in the conservatory itself and even if the heating is on in the house with the door from the house to the conservatory open it doesn't warm up quite enough.

What options would you advise? I have looked into a few things and many of them say "for occasional use" whereas I would want something to use daily before I go to work and possibly in the evenings and/or on weekends. In the summer I might well face the opposite problem although I would be able to open all of the doors and windows. At the moment I have computer hardware in here and I am wondering if the temperature fluctuations will affect that. I wonder if one solution might ultimately be to replace the conservatory with a brick-built extension (which might well require planning permission) but for now I am looking for a temporary solution to get me through the next few seasons/years.

All ideas appreciated - at the moment I am thinking that fingerless gloves could go a long way here and one friend proposed using an electric blanket.

As a temporary quick fix what about one of these www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009YRTBX2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A29REP3H78XD79&psc=1&tag=mumsnetforum-21

They have a stat and timer and have good reviews. I was thinking of getting a couple for ours as couldn’t understand why the underfloor heating wasn’t working very well. Just discovered the temperature was set too low!

Think you're on a losing battle. Its 2oC here this morning and I suspect my conservatory wouldn't be much warmer than that. We even have a house radiator in it but it doesn't do much. But if you want to persist I would use hat/fingerless gloves/rug and a cheap oil column heater right by where you're sitting.

We have a biggish conservatory on the back of our house (4m by 5m) with no central heating.
We have a small oil radiator (plug in) constantly on the snowflake symbol throughout Autumn and winter.
When the room is in use it is turned fully on for around a hour and then turned down half way until we leave the room.
It seems to work well but I don't know how much it costs to run.

Just to add, ours has a timer so you could set it to come on full an hour or so before you need to go in there.

Great suggestions thank you. (Posted whilst shivering(!))

A conservatory is cheap to build because it does not have to meet the same building regulations as a house. It is considered to be an outbuilding.

For example a modern house might have an insulated floor, cavity walls with insulation, 250mm of loft insulation, relatively small, double glazed windows, heat-saving door with porch.

A conservatory is just a fancy shed. It is so bad at heat retention that you aren't allowed to include it on the usual radiator circuit and you are required to have external-quality doors between house and conservatory.

Consider what you would spend to keep a large, badly-insulated shed or greenhouse warm in winter.

We have an oil filled radiator on a timer which works well for us. You can also get electric radiators which can look more contemporary but they’re more expensive to buy and still as expensive to run.

Interesting, thank you.

We were chatting to a conservatory salesman the other day and he suggested that you could overcome the too-hot / too-cold problem with a small air-con unit. Dunno if it's true.

I think I'm going to go for an oil-fired radiator and take on board the comment about this exercise being like heating a shed.

Ideally I would like to wall-mount the radiator but the wall I would use for mounting was once was an outside wall (as the conservatory is an extension) so is brick on the lower half. Will it be possible to mount a wall-mounted oil-fired radiator onto such a surface? I'm totally clueless.

yes.

but before you buy, check what brackets it comes with.

I just checked, and the popular ones come on casters with no mention of a wall bracket. I suppose you could tether it to the wall yourself but that would not be very elegant. A premium brand like Dimplex probably can supply them. Most brands are Chinese imports so you may not be able to communicate with the maker.

Oil heaters are particularly safe because they have no exposed element. I don't think they can start fires like a fan heater or panel heater can.

You'd surely want any heater to be on the floor as heat rises so the floor will be freezing.

Have you looked at a replacement roof? Something like Wetheralds?

Thanks @PigletJohn. I have seen wall-mounted oil-fired radiators like this -- am I missing something here?

@llangennith The floor is not what gets cold, it's the air.

@wineymummy I had not considered this yet, no. One to look into, thank you.

Electric blanket, heated slippers and hand warmer gloves

Ok😂 I give up!

oil radiator and could you add some lined curtains for insulation

I have a 17 year old north facing conservatory in northern Scotland. This year we have reassigned it as honorary overflow Christmas drinks storage. We are going to knock it in due course.

I have an oil filled radiator which we used to use at Christmas when we put the tree out there. This year the tree is in our living room where we can enjoy it in the warmth.

Try the oil filled rad OP. The conservatory might not be strong enough for light roof tiles but that blocks light anyway.

cor, £200 for a 500W heater!

that won't give out much heat.

I'd looked at things like this Three times the heat and one-sixth the purchase price.

Or three times the heat for a third the price

You must be richer than me.

We have a wall mounted electric rad which is on a timer, and we also have a ceramic fan heater in there to blast for a few mins if it's really cold. Just one of them wasn't enough in really cold weather

If you have the money, a better quality conservatory may be the answer. We had an 80's one when we moved in with a plastic roof. It was awful. Too cold to use in winter, too hot in Summer and ridiculously noisy in the rain.

We had it replaced with better spec tripled glazed windows with some kind of heat/light reflecting film and a glass roof, again, with a reflecting film. That was 3 years ago and we use it daily now, winter and summer. It's off our dining room, so the heat from the radiator warms it up and we also have a small convector heater if it's icy cold or for when the central heating isn't on. It was used daily over the Summer heatwave with no issues at all - we just opened the windows which kept it a nice temperature and there was no glare from the sun either due to the film.

When we got quotes, they were around £7k-£9k for a normal "like for like" or £10-£12 for the top quality glass roof and tripled glazed option, so not really that much more, but the different is quite amazing. Far cheaper than a brick built extension with a proper roof instead.

We have bought a couple of houses DESPITE them having conservatories. I think there were several days a year when the temperature was ok in there, not freezing or boiling and I refuse to heat what is basically a glass box stuck on the house. They are really not a great idea in this country! However if you plan to stay in the house for some time, as a PP says, would look at having the glass roof replaced with an insulated 'proper' one, which apparently can make a big difference both winter and summer. There are lots of companies who specialise in this.