Conservatory: what to do

[cocktailclub]

Advice and suggestions gratefully received.

We recently moved to a house with a conservatory leading out onto a decked area then access to a raised garden.

The conservatory is lovely and light and we do use it, and leads from a kitchen and separate dining room which we plan to turn into one kitchen diner.

Usual conservatory issues with heat in the summer and using a lots of energy to keep it warm in the winter.

So what are our options when we knock through the kitchen and dining room. Our budget is around £70k for everything (new kitchen etc)

Badly drawn diagram to be uploaded

Thanks in advance

Badly drawn diagram as promised

Building control regs won't let you open up the conservatory like that. You have to have external standard doors, although you could consider bifolds. You are also not supposed to connect the conservatory to the main house heating.

We had a conservatory and we built up the brick walls and added a solid roof (not these gimmick ones). Moved the kitchen in there and it was a brilliant, light space. Cost a fraction of an extension because the foundations were already there.

We've had a full survey when we moved in which didn't identify this and building regs were signed off.

@tinyt137 thanks
Thants something to think about which we hadn't considered

I think what MarieG10 may mean is that you may struggle to get permission to 'knock through' with that configuration, but I wouldn't know about that- it's not clear what doors there are between the conservatory and the two inner rooms. When we had our last conservatory, if you used your central heating to heat the conservatory, you couldn't do it under permitted development, you needed Building Control, and maybe even PP, I don't remember; we needed PP anyway, and decided on separate heating so didn't have to involve BC. If all that's been done, you should be oaky with that part of it. But if it wasn't connected to the central heating when BC was granted, that could be an issue if you connect it in.

@BlueMongoose thanks for explaining

We knocked down our conservatory - the initial quote we had for putting a steel in and replacing the conservatory with proper foundations and a glazed room was £70K not including kitchen.

I'd be tempted to get some quotes to put an extension with glazing in and underfloor heating.

Our conservatory came off the dining room. We knocked through no problem and built an extension - £30k all in.

I hope you get it sorted. We're having some roof work done, we registered for BC fine, and, though we are pretty certain we don't need PP, the planning portal is not very well written, so we spent ages sorting out forms and doing plans and photos according to our local authority's website requirements to do a pre-planning inquiry- where for 80 quid they tell you if you will need PP- just to be sure. Then their payment system didn't work (that's normal for our council, it's an outsourced mess) and when Mr BlueMongoose rang Planning to ask for the number to pay by phone, they just said, 'we're too busy, we're not doing those any more'. All that time wasted. And then they said they had no idea when they would be doing it again, so we'd just have to keep looking on their website- which doesn't even say now that they aren't, so that's a bit pointless.😠We can't wait indefinitely as the roof really does need doing, and it's bonkers to pay a fortune and wait what is months round here for a full planning application that we're as certain as we can be we don't need. I hope your local authority isn't in such a mess as ours. It's all the same stuff you'd expect- years of central government funding cuts to local authorities, so they no longer have the staff.

ThTs really good. I'm hoping that will be us