New conservatory with solar glass roof - should we do it? Has anyone got one?!

[AliceSpencer90]

Hi, I know conservatories are a bit of a Marmite topic, but here goes...

So my husband and I live in a small 3 bed 1960s semi in the midlands. We have a lounge that's not quite big enough to be a lounge diner and a kitchen that's not quite big enough to be a kitchen diner.... which was all fine until our daughter came along last year!

Now everything feels so small and I'm desperate for more space - somewhere we can use as a proper dining room/play room area, basically.

We have about £20k to use, but that's a stretch (having to borrow a little bit from my dad just in case we have any boiler emergencies in the meantime).

We've had a million quotes for conservatories, but obviously not the kind that everyone hates, with a polycarbonate roof. We've been assured that the 'ambi sun shade blue tinted solar glass' that would be used for the roof would make it usable throughout the year (with the addition of a heater or oil radiator, of course). But of course the person who wants our business is going to say that. We're looking at about 18k all in.

Has anyone got a new conservatory with this fancy solar glass? It's supposed to keep 80-something% of the heat out? Is that really the case?

It would be attached to our kitchen, which is north facing and it's very sheltered, so I'd hope that it wouldn't be too hot for use in summer, apart from a few days maybe. And it would have 2 dwarf walls, with just french doors and windows at the end looking on to the garden.

We've spent so long researching this, and looking into extensions as an alternative, but that would be 35k and 1. It would make the kitchen super dark and 2. Even though the neighbours wouldn't object, they have a conservatory next door with a low fence, and I wouldn't want to lumber them with a lovely view of a brick wall.

I've also looked into tiled roofs, but we'd be looking at about 25k for that, so I'm not sure it's worth it?

Basically, if anyone has any experience of a pretty new conservatory with a fancy solar glass roof, please tell me if it's worth us spending our life savings on one or not! We can't really afford to move in this market, so we think a conservatory is basically our only option...

Thanks so much if anyone's got this far! Really appreciate any advice :)

Hi. Yes I have one. I seem to be the sole supporter on MN of conservatories, everyone else says they hate them. Though, as is often the case, what happens on MN doesn't seem to reflect RL.
We have a glass roof with the technical glass. I'm not totally sure about your description of 'ambi sun shade blue tinted solar glass'. Is that the real deal or something trying to pass itself off? Ours was Pilkington Activ Blue.
Our conservatory is fine. It is not too hot in the summer, it is not too cold in the winter (we've had it a few years now so it is well-tested). The self-cleaning works. The blue is subtle, you only notice when you compare it to the clear window glass. There is minimal noise; if you can hear rain it is only because there is an absolute monsoon outside.
Extensions are not always what they are cracked up to be - see this thread here!
The only downside we had was that the special coating on one of the panels was faulty. Luckily we spotted it straightaway because we needed to clean off bird poo, otherwise we wouldn't have known. I recommend that you do a test watering of the roof when it is installed.
I can't comment on your price because ours was an upgrade to an existing conservatory so we already had foundations, dwarf wall, etc.
Go for it!

Watching, as I have offered on a house with a conservatory - dwarf walls and timber frame, but with a replacement glass roof that the agent described as very quiet when it rains. I will ask if it is what Senua has described. Can you tell me more about the cleaning please?

Can you tell me more about the cleaning please?
The exterior self-cleans (it's a shame that the interior, like all other glass, doesn't). Sometimes you need to give it a helping hand so you just hosepipe it, maybe squeegee it. They are very strict about not cleaning it with chemicals or abrasives because that would damage the special coating and void any warranties.

Thank you. Sounds good.

@senua thank you so much for replying! It's great to hear that they're not all as awful as some would have you believe 😂

Yep I think it's the same as Pilkington :). Can I ask what kind of heating you have in it? I keep reading about oil filled radiators. And if you went for underfloor heating at all? I guess we just need to go for it and make adaptations if we actually need them...

You're so right about extensions! They're not always perfect. And it just wouldn't suit our house and garden, we don't have enough space!

I absolutley love my conservatory. We weren't short of space but it was the best thing we ever did.
It has tinted polycarbonate panels, so not the same as you describe.
I think they reflect away a bit of the heat but there is no doubt there is significant heat loss in winter. We have a heater in there but it never feels comfotably warm in cold weather.
Last year our big lockdown spend was to fit electric under floor heating. It has made a huge difference, albeit expensive to run. If you fit it along with building it wouldn't be as costly. Water based UFH even better.

Our original conservatory was built a while ago. I don't know if we did it wrong at the time or if regulations have changed in the meantime but our radiator runs off the main CH system.

We have the blue roof glass. It makes it better but not useable all year round and ours is on the coolest side of the house.

Factor in the cost of roof blinds as I bet you'll need them and lots of heating in the winter, we have a radiator and a plug on heater.

If you have 20k I'd look into a sun room with big windows rather than a conservatory or a conservatory with a proper roof.

Oh and self cleaning? Yeah, not in my experience, still needs a heck of a lot of cleaning inside and out.

Our house had a conservatory when we bought it. It's wasn't "too" old, with PVC windows and the usual corrugated plastic roof. We couldn't use it - too hot in summer, too cold in winter. Stereotypical conservatory really.

We bit the bullet and replaced the glass windows with modern high tech glass and the plastic roof with a glass roof.

We're very glad we did. The difference that "modern" high tech glass makes is amazing. We can literally use it all year around now. Even during the hottest days of the last few weeks, we were able to sit in it.

For us, the decision was easy as we already had the conservatory base, walls, floor, electrical, radiator etc., so replacing the panels was actually quite cheap (£8k or so I think). But if you've nothing there, then perhaps you need to compare costs of a conservatory against cost of a "proper" bricks and mortar building with a "proper" roof, as there may not be too much difference in price, and even though we love our conservatory, we'd probably prefer a proper building, not least because a bricks and mortar structure will always last longer than a conservatory which is really a temporary structure.

Ours is rarely too hot and we don't have fancy glass. We have the doors open to the back garden a lot. It's cold in winter though despite radiators and we need the doors closed in the evening. Ours is great as a playroom/ extra living space. Lovely and light (too bright for a tv). Also handy to dry laundry.

We had the roof replaced with blue solar glass a few years ago. We also installed wet underfloor heating. It's L shaped off our kitchen so quite a big space. When it's really cold in the winter we would also use an additional heat source and in the summer we open the roof vents and the doors as we face east and south so it can get very hot. Not an issue for us. We did consider a tiled roof which would be more energy efficient as your could pack in the insulation, but we love the light having a glass roof offers and in the winter when there is a bit of sun the room is always warm without the UFH.

Just to add ours faces SE. There are perhaps half a dozen days in the year when it's too hot to sit in it even with doors and windows open.
I have no blinds.
An extension wasn't really something I wanted as we have three reception rooms and a large kitchen so didn't need the space, what I wanted was that "in the garden" feel. It's huge so we have a dining table and two sofas in there. When DC were young we had a pool table and a table tennis table which we used in there alternately.

Having said all that if space was an issue I would have an extension with big windows and glass doors.

We have an East facing conservatory like this. In full sun it is pretty toasty - I wouldn't want to sit in there without the windows and doors open. Thankfully as it's East facing, it's not for very long that it's not useable.

In the winter it is chilly (unless it's a sunny day), but we don't use it all the time, so have an oil filled heater for the colder months and put it on a timer.

What has massively helped is having duette blinds installed. I really didn't think they made much of a difference until I couldn't be arsed to shut the blinds one winter's evening and felt very cold. Closed the blinds and it definitely took the chill off.

One thing that very few people talk about is the insects though! We have one of those snap shut net curtain things across our doors now as otherwise your house ends up full of flies and bugs. They seem bloody attracted to it!

Someone near us has a swimming pool, so we also end up with damsel flies and full on dragon flies (which honestly sound like someone's trying to break out as they bounce off the windows/roof!).

I know MN seems to hate conservatories, but we love ours. It's a second reception room and has a big comfy sofa and TV out there.

It's actually a much quieter room than our double glazed living room as it doesn't have any of those useless trickle vents in the frames.

If there's big thundery showers like we've had recently, you can't hear the TV over it, but normal rain is fine.

Thanks so much everyone for your replies! It's all really useful :)

We've thought about it so much and weighed up all the pros and cons. We're going to go for it and have the conservatory with the fancy solar glass roof. And leave budget for blinds and possibly underfloor heating too.

If money was no issue, we might consider an orangery/extension, but unless we win the lottery, it's not gonna happen!

I love,love, love our conservatory. It’s my favourite place to be whatever the weather. We have the glass roof. It faces west so does get hotels it gets the sun most of the day. I imagine north facing will fare better.
Just a few tips. Get big openers as you can let the air circulate. Also think about the layout. We have the door on the side so we get useable space rather than being a corridor to the garden.
Also I’d recommend keeping the door out to the conservatory- or having some sort of door put in, it makes it easier and cheaper to regulate the heat in the rest of the house when it is super hot or super cold.
We have a radiator plumbed in and an electric fire. The fire is really just for looks as it looks like a log burner 😉

We built one in 2018. The solar glass roof works well, but is not the complete answer not least because half the east facing wall and the whole of the south facing wall are made of bog standard clear glass and when strong sun is low in the sky for long periods first thing on a morning, as it was a few weeks ago, it shines straight through them!

As a PP said, it makes a big difference regulating the temperature of the house though. The biggest difference is that out kitchen-diner is now much cooler, even if the air on the other side of the original French doors (which we left in place) is now much, much hotter.

We've got electric Loggia heaters in the two outer corners which we turn on and off if we're going to use the room in the depths of winter. We can set them on a thermostat but don't use the room daily in winter so don't bother. They are better at keeping the room warm than warming it up from single figure temperatures, so we have a plug-in convection heater too, which heats it up in 45 mins or so. Ruled out extending the central heating (impractical because of the location of pipework) and underfloor heating (high running costs). We left space for a wall-vented woodburner or electric stove, but haven't got round to that yet.

We're in NW England and can use the room unheated until late October and again from mid February if it's sunny. It does get hot in the summer even with opening all the doors and windows - two weeks ago it was over 30 deg C at 7am when I went in to open up - although we have no blinds and it catches the sun from sunrise through to after lunch; no shade, nothing. We left space for airconditioning but cannot justify the installing or running costs when the space is a nice to have rather than really necessary.

Biggest regret was not having a roof opening. We opted out on cost grounds and bad experience with MILs leaking ones but it's difficult to cool down the room once it gets hot if it's still in strong sun. It's well insulated.

Ours is a 'lean to' design which we like as it looks modern and clean, and it cut costs down considerably compared to a ridged roof. However, with snow loading requirements we could only go 3m deep on a single pane of glass.

If you can stretch to it I think an orangery type extension is better. I hate our consevatory. Having it taken down when we get round to it. Theres a lot of images on google.

We had one built in 2010 with that glass. It was south facing and I’m sure it would have been unbearable without the solar glass. Still hot in summer but ok once opened the windows.
We put underfloor heating in too. Expensive to run but overall cheaper than having an extension. We used it year-round as a dining room, including Christmas Day. It did have one full wall on the side though.
If I’d planned to stay long term in that house I probably would have had a proper extension, but it was worth it for 5 of extra space.