Options to warm up house with open plan conservatory.

[FishFriend]

We’ve just bought a house with a huge open plan conservatory. It’s runs almost the full length of the house - about 6 x 3 metes. It’s double glazed on three sides from about 40cm off the ground. The fourth side is brick. The roof is made of plastic sheeting.

The previous owners removed part of the external wall so there is no separation between the conservatory and the rest of the house. Unless the heating is on all the time the whole downstairs is freezing!

We need to be warm but we don’t have a huge amount of money. What are our options here? DH wants to keep the conservatory so getting rid of the whole thing is out of the question.

We’re thinking of reinstating the external wall between the conservatory and the rest of the house, or putting on some sort of lantern roof, or flat roof with skylights. Not sure this would be enough insulation though?

sorry to be confused but if it has 3 sides double glazed & one side brick how is it open to the house?

We have a similar thing with 2 double glazed & one wall brick but it does get very cold in winter and unbelievably hot in the summer. We have sliding patio door that goes from the lounge into the conservatory which keeps the house cool & warm both which works very well but i'd imagine may be quite expensive to install (came with the house)

We are also looking at options for the roof, you can get a plastic tilling look panels put over the existing roof which will insulate & shade but I can't remember the name of the company & am unsure how effective they are at stopping water getting underneath the plastic

In the short term could you get some huge heavy curtains and hang them where the wall would be? It will help with the insulation and give you an idea of how reinstating the walk would look.

I saw an ad on the tv for insulation that goes inside the roof of conservatories to keep them warmer in winter and cooler in summer.
Here are some ways to do it yourself home.bt.com/lifestyle/house-home/diy-ideas/6-diy-ways-to-insulate-your-conservatory-11364218294844

I'm surprised the survey didn't pick something as obvious as that as non compliant with building regulations! Hopefully they didn't sell that as a habitable room. Some people do remove external doors, assuming that a conservatory is like an extension but actually there are no insulation standards therefore it can be as bad as having an open door.
I think your best solution is to put some kind of external standard doors, you could add a pair of sliding doors or even part brick with swing doors. The other way would be demolish and rebuild with a smaller amount of glazing and a lot more insulated cavity wall, and floor and ceiling insulation. But that cost way more than a basic conservatory.

Disclaimer is i don't like conservatories and couldn't wait to demolish ours which was boiling in summer and freezing in winter!

I used to have a conservatory on my property. We turned it into an extension with glass roof (amazing light) and large folding doors. I would also recommend wet underfloor heating if you can budget it.
I love our converted conservatory and the lighting is amazing ! Skylights would be great as well if you can't budget a full glass roof!

I used GreenLife Contractors for my project 02077362006. It was a few years ago but I think they're still in business ! x

We have a big conservatory on the back of ours but it does close off to the house. We're going to get it converted to a proper roof at some point.
However- we had a log burner installed in it not long after we moved in and love it. Makes the room usable all year round and we leave the door open to the rest of downstairs when it's on as heats up whole downstairs.

Sorry, yes the conservatory is 2 sides glass and one side wall. The fourth side is open to the house. The survey did pick this up and the house was priced accordingly. The rest of the house is great, it’s just the conservatory.

We have something exactly like this, even the dimensions. Ours also runs along the whole back and open to what would have been the living room and dining room. However, our roof is double glazed so not as cold. Maybe you change the plastic roof to glass? We also have a radiator in the conservatory, which I believe doesn't meet building regs as it is connected to the rest of the heating system but it makes a big difference in there.

This was how we found it when we bought it. In fact one of the reasons we liked the house, the openness downstairs.

We are changing the roof next week to a partially insulated one (about 60%) with a vented windows at the top(see attached). We will have spot lights installed in the insulated pelmet which should brighten the space a lot more in the evenings. We use the conservatory as our dining space. The new glass that will be installed has a u-value of 0.9 so it should make the space even warmer. It is going to cost more than we wanted but it is something we have wanted to do and like you, we can't afford to knock down and have a 'proper' extension so we have gone down this route.

The other things we considered were installing very thick curtains between the openings and the conservatory but it would have left the office and living area dark as no windows to those rooms but it could suit you?

GemmeFatale beat me to the curtain idea.

I have a large oak framed conservatory (orangery) and we have wet underfloor heating. It has a glass roof and is open to the house on two sides. DH is a Structural Engineer. It’s my kitchen.

The bad news is that you need an expensive conservatory to keep it warm. We use ours all year with no problems at all. One you cannot use is a total waste of space and will haemorrhage money! My advice is therefore to upgrade it with heating and high quality double glazing, all round and including the roof - or start again. You might be pouring money into a sinking pit.

Any conservatory with a plastic roof is a cheap one. It cannot be a high quality construction because it wouldn’t have a plastic roof if it was. I would save up and rebuild. You could spend a lot of money and still find it’s unusable!

notyetthere we have exactly the same set up. Can I ask how much the new roof will cost? How do you check the foundations can support a new roof?

I would save up and re-build as a proper extension with decent flooring + insulation (WUFH if you can), cavity walls and roof with insulation + roof lanterns for light and lovely big sliders.

Could you install internal doors like this:


Oops - how do you post an image?

Trying again:

The roof is going to be the biggest culprit. Curtains or blinds?

Those door are lovely FloralCup.

I wish we could afford to make it into a proper extension but we can’t.

The conservatory almost stopped us (or me) buying the house so we’re just trying to make the most of it now... although DH has grown to like it!

We bought our house three years ago which has a conservatory built on to the side of the house and the wall between it and the kitchen had been removed. It had two large radiators but because it had a polycarbonate roof it was cold in winter, hot in summer, and incredibly noisy when it rained. A year ago we had an insulated tiled roof installed by these people: www.solarframe.co.uk/solid-roofs

They did a tremendous job in under a week, including plastering the ceiling, installing ceiling lights and a complete clean - the window frames looked like new. The size is approximately 2.4m x 4.5m. The difference has been amazing - quieter, warmer in winter, cooler in summer, and it looks so much nicer from outside - more like a regular extension. It cost around £10k.

CatCoriander the roof looks very nice, but £10k seems a lot. To re-roof our entire house cost about £5k.

It is likely a cheap conservatory cannot hold up a new roof. Therefore it might need to be reinforced, unlike reroofing a standard roof. Also £5,000 is very cheap!

Don’t use ceiling “curtains”! Ever! They collect every insect on the planet. You will be cleaning them out every day in the summer and wondering where all the dead flies have come from.

We had a similar setup in a previous house and installed bifold doors. It meant we could keep the feeling of openness that we liked, having them closed or folded back depending on what we were up to.

Thanks BubblesBuddy. I’ve been trying to find the invoice for the roof as I think £5k sounds cheap too! Maybe I misremembered! Hadn’t thought about the insects trap. Thanks for the heads up.

Thinking that rebuilding the external wall between the house and conservatory is our best bet.

Could you reinstate part of the external wall and add doors, eg www.directdoors.com/products/downham-white-primed-door-pair-bevelled-clear-safety-glass?
www.diy.com/departments/6-lite-clear-2-panel-internal-french-door-h-1981mm-w-579mm/964672_BQ.prd?
This could be a short term measure and would effectively cut off that part of your home and keep the rest warm until funds allow the conservatory to be updated with efficient insulation or be rebuilt.

As a stop gap I’d try and use curtains , shutters or doors between the conservatory and the house. This would stop such a rapid loss of heat from the house during the winter but your conservatory use would still be dictated by the weather.

Long term,to have a year-round useable room, I would explore Ultraframe or Evolution composite conservatory rooves. Because the tiles are composite,they are lighter than normal tiles and can therefore be borne by most post 80s UPVC frames.