Recent experiences of orangeries? Yes/no and why

[Trytosmilefor2025]

I know the general view on conservatories and orangeries is not very favorable, but have been told recent structures can be used all year round and can cost lower than an extension.

If you had one installed over the last 2 years, can you please share your experience? How do you use the space and what you would do differently?

Pictures will be amazing too!

I am interested in this too as thinking about the possibility of adding one on a house I might buy. Interested in the features that make it useable all year round - slate roof? Solar glass?

Any thoughts?

Is orangery not just a pretentious word for a conservatory? I snorted a bit when I saw one mentioned in the Rightmove listing for a bog standard looking house on the 1990s built estate we were living on.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, what's the difference?

We've lived in a few houses with conservatories and yes, they end up being used for storage/not often used as freezing in winter and can be boiling in summer. I still think it's a nice to have though, and apparently the right blinds can make a difference.

Yes it’s basically a posh conservatory with more bricks /leas glass and a more substantial roof.

Yes, it does seem as though the term 'orangery' is being used as a ridiculously pretentious term for a conservatory, which is in itself just a cheap extension these days rather than an actual conservatory.

I went into an orangery at the weekend. A proper one with real live orange trees growing in it, which is what an orangery is for. Orange blossom smells incredible, by the way.

My friends son designs orangerys for a bespoke company.
They start including his fees at half a million pounds.
He was telling me that the company he works for have enough
orders on the books for the next two years.

Back to my teeny tiny conservatory.

Such a pretentious word!

The reason I am asking is because at least on paper they do look like an extension, but clearly it still doesn't replace the real thing!

Strangely, I have experience of both within the last 3/4yrs. I'm not a builder, so I'm far from any expert, but some things I've learnt as a general home owner.
My understanding is that a conservatory has more glass and a pitched type roof, whereas an orangery has more brickwork, flat roof and often a lantern in the middle.
Conservatories/orangeries within a certain size are generally allowed without planning under permitted development.
1 thing is they expect a door between the conservatory and the main house.

Property 1
We didn't want a closed door between the conservatory and main house, because we wanted it to be more extension like. We wanted more space in the kitchen/diner. Not just a room shoved on the end of the house behind a door. We also installed a small cloakroom. We approached 3 conservatory companies and none had heard of adding a toilet before nor removing the door between the main house! Several suggested we keep a door and once they'd left, we could remove it ourselves and do what we liked! You'd need building control to check it if you go for the no door option like we did.

This build was complicated, and FAR more expensive, by it being over a sewer pipe and wrong information from the conservatory company.

It was maybe 4m x 5m. We chose the best UV glass available, 1 entire wall was brick, and we had brick about 1m up each wall. I don't recall details of what insulation they put in.

We were only there a few months after completion before we moved for family reasons. It did feel very hot and bright in sunny weather, but better blinds would have helped.

Property 2 (current house)
This was a re-build of what had been a derelict extension and a cross between an extension and orangery. It has new, full height brick walls like a normal room, but due to the amount of large windows, bifolds and large lantern, might technically be an orangery? It too gets very hot on sunny days, but we have thermal blinds which help. We also have 4m bifolds which we open to release the heat. This was part of a much larger renovation, so I can't give prices of just this part.

Currently, this room is used for indoor plants, growing seedlings and storage boxes because we are still renovating. It might be a games room/bar in future. The lantern seems to collect a terrible amount of flying insects which I didn't consider.

I'm sorry this is long and I'm not sure I've helped. Maybe just some things to consider though.