What is it like in your conservatory summer and winter?

[Berrie]

We need some extra room and we could stretch to a conservatory but I'm wondering whether we should wait until we can afford an extension.
Will it be too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter to use and is there anything that can be done about these problems. It would be west facing or we could have a north facing one but I don't think that's such a good idea.

We had extension out as far as the conservatory went,ie about 9 feet double storey completer width of house and it took 4 months ,£80,000.

Our house feels soooo much bigger and is soooo much nicer to live in.

Thanks. Does a sun room need the same kind of planning permission as an extension or can you whack it up like an conservatory?

That's a lot of money...
I'm not sure that we shouldn't move for that much extra though I'm not sure we'd ever find a garden like ours for the money.

We reasoned it was cheaper for us to extend our house than move and pay all those moving expenses,which can reach £15-20,000.

Berrie... our conservatory is 18ft long. It is the largest area you can get without having to apply for planning permission. The builder will advise on all of that.

It cost £12,000 but the blinds (roof and windows) cost £6,000 (ridiculous I know) but it means we can use it all year round... cosy, romantic in winter and the blinds cool it a bit in the summer. Without blinds, the 'sound' in the conservatory is sort of tinny... even your voice would echo. But paying for the blinds means it really is an extra room.

When I have friends round (a lot!) I never ever use my lounge. I always use my conservatory... winter or summer.

When you say, 'cool it a bit' is that cool enough?
£18,000...better than £80,000!

Oh ...boiling hot, I've looked back!

There is not much of summer during the year either

We paid £16 k for ours. It is four by 5 meters. The ceiling has reflective glass, so it is like the conservatory has sunglasses on. And you cant see into it from above (unless it is night, and the lights are on).

We have sliding doors, and open windows. But even with the windows closed it is not too hot in summer. It is really nice. On fine days we kept the sliding doors open, to the deck, and the conservatory and our deck was the main living area of the house. Ours is north facing.

It is a little chilly on a winter morning. But I have a nice soft thick wool rug I lay out for warmth, and I have a small fan heather. It is nice and cosy. It helps that we have chosen a laminate floor and not a stone floor. We have stone floor in the kitchen, and it is impossible to be barefeet in winter it is so cold!

If you can afford a high spec one, go for it! We chose Anglian and have no regrets. And you can negotiate the price down
Be prepared to haggle.

Ours is south facing and last year it was BAKING so we got aircon which is a heater also so we're sorted

south facing here - boiling hot in the summer - sometimes too hot to actually sit in - but warm in the winter.

I'm not a big fan of my conservatory tbh - waste of good garden space. SOmetimes when I am attempting to sit in without expiring from heat exhaustion I just think to myself FGS, go and sit in the f garden!!!!

anyway Berrie, save your dosh and spend it on something more exciting like, I dont know, a trip to London perhaps...

Ours cost £11.5k, and like ggirl, fingured it would cost that to move.

It's 3 x 3.5m, and is now a lovely bright playroom. We too have an opal roof, which avoids the need for roof blinds, as it has the 'sunglasses' effect, without colouring the room, if that makes sense.

Ours cost £24k which is a total rob to say it has leaked at least six times necessitating new flooring and furniture ggrrr!!

Berrie, our £80,000 was for the sunroom, PLUS a utility room, shower room and study virtually built from scratch, new foundations dug under our 25 sq.m. dining room, then French doors and solid oak floor AND digging a soil drain through the house, as our septic tank is at the front. Not a bad price I'd say!!

Berrie.... cool it a bit means that unless it is baking hot you can sit in it. If it is one of those (rare) boiling hot days, no you really can't sit in it and you wouldn't want to anyway, cos more than likely you would outside on such a hot day.

Our conservatory is off our dining room with no doors, just a big arch straight through, floor tiles the same in dining room and conservatory so it gives me a room over 30ft.

I honestly think there are two camps... you either love conservatories(me) or hate them but I just love the sun and to be able to sit on a November day with the sun pouring in, feeling like i am in the mediterranean is pure bliss!

my dh loves it and spends lots of time in there but to me it doesnt feel cosy enough (cant explain why)

Binkle!

Stop Tissy You are making me soooo jealous!

Helliebean, I thought that you were not allowed to do that with the arch as building regs had changed? How long ago was it done?

Does the reflective glass ceiling look clear from the inside?

sorry, didn't mean to make you jealous!

Will it help if I add that my planned early retirement is now put back to the more normal 65 to allow time to pay off our mortgage?

Berrie... you are on the ball! Strictly speaking, no you are not. But to pass building regs the plans showed big double doors (very big!)... building regs were passed.
Then we just didn't put them in. As I understand it, that is quite a normal practice and what a lot of people do... It was 8.5 years ago.

In case you are thinking Berrie, that means that obviously our £12,000 conservatory is gonna be hugely more expensive... our neighbours did the same 2 years ago and it was £15,000 so not that much of a price rise.

We looked at getting a conservatory as a kid's playroom about 3 years ago. The average quote we got was somewhere around £15k - £18k.

In the end we went for a ground floor extension, triple the space which cost us around £35k including the cost of a brand new kitchen. Much better value for money and can use it all year round.

Obviously, building an extension is much more disruptive than a conservatory, given that a conservatory can more or less go up in a weekend, but comparing the prices conservatories felt a huge rip off to us for what you actually got.

Ours is lovely BUT:

the people before us put it in and didn't have radiators but electric underfloor heating and it costs a bloody fortune (so much in fact that after the first electric bill we decided it would only be switched on for parties and Christmas Day...).

It is boiling in Summer (doesn't bother me as we are generally outside)

It is freezing in Winter so we have to have halogen heaters on.

I still love it though - lovely bright open space which always makes you feel better when a bit down. A great place for propagating plants too

definightly go for extension - we have a conservatory and no one uses it, is supposedly a play room, but kids find it dusty/spiders etc , it leaks despite being 2 yrs old and is just generally depressing, we should have had an extension but i just could n't wait for planning - i am kicking myself now, sorry to hijal but does anyone know if you can attatch plastic curtain rails to pvc conservatories, i am planning a make over on ours to make it more inviting, so plan to hang pink gingham curtains ( light weight ) ,?