Conservatory roof.... can't decide!

[Puppyinaflat]

I moved into a house about 6 weeks ago. It has a large SW facing Edwardian style conservatory (which the previous owner had built) attached to the lounge.

There's no door between the lounge and the conservatory, just a wide, open doorway. One side of the conservatory is a fully bricked wall, the end is a dwarf wall with large windows and there are large double sliding patio doors, a dwarf wall and one large window on the other side. There's also no radiator in the conservatory. The roof is opaque polycarbonate.

The weather has been warm/hot and sunny pretty much since I moved in, and whilst the conservatory gets very warm over the course of the day, I wouldn't say it was unbearably hot.

However, when I first moved in (very early April) the conservatory got very cold in the evenings and that meant the lounge was also very cold.

It's a lovely space but it's currently pretty much empty and I really want to make it into a useable room. I've discounted putting a door on between the lounge and the conservatory because that would still mean it was an unusable room (although the lounge would certainly be warmer!)

I've been getting quotes for various types of "warm roof insulation" (I didn't realise there were so many options!) which are coming in at wildly varying prices.

However, I've been getting conflicting opinions from friends and family about just how much of a difference getting the roof insulated will make.

Does anyone have experience of getting this kind of work done, did it make a noticeable difference and what system did you use?

Thanks in advance 😊

I think you should rethink putting a door in.
A friend spent £££’s on a proper roof to try to warm hers, didn’t make much difference tbh, it was still freezing. She even installed a log burner and had portable fan heaters and it was still cold in both rooms for several months of the year.

We have a silver opaque roof and it's quite good as far as conservatory rooves go. We have considered having a flat roof replacement with light lanterns and a balcony above because it would have a sea view! They say we can have the roof but not a balcony without further strengthening....so I don't move forwards!

We, however, do have double glazed doors into it. These we had fitted before it was built so they are external door quality.

We also have one large radiator in here.

I love it as an additional reception room especially when its not quite nice enough to sit outside.

The biggest thing that makes our conservatory unusable isn't winter actually it's heavy rain. Just cannot hear yourself think.

Can't help with the roof though!

Thank you so much, that's exactly the kind of information I was needing 😊

Does your friend's conservatory have walls or is it all glass? I've been led to believe this makes a big difference. Plus the direction the conservatory is facing (mine being SW facing means it's in full sun pretty much all day)

I love the idea of a sea view balcony. Lucky you! I'm about as far from the sea as you can get in the UK!

I would put a proper roof on it (as in the same style of roof as the house)

my aunt has a conservatory with the traditional conservatory roof and it’s so noisy and gets really dirty.

id also reconsider the door , no point having cold rooms.

I may be out of date but you need to think about the opening to the conservatory. External conservatory doors don't meet building regs so you need the door from the house to the conservatory to be up to standard. Obviously a "wide open doorway" doesn't fit this.
Article here.

Like our neighbours, we had a polycarbonate roof. Unlike them, we have sliding patio doors between the conservatory and the house.
Both conservatories face the same direction as yours, have a radiator and dwarf walls.
They changed the roof to specialist glass. We changed to a timber frame, thick insulation panels, plastic (?) tiles, internal plastering.
For 7 to 10 days a year we need to close our sliding patio doors to keep out the cold. That’s all. The solid roof has made a tremendous difference. Our neighbours still find their conservatory too cold or too hot and because they can’t separate it from the house, they lose a room.

Unfortunately, I can't afford to get the whole thing re-roofed. The main reason for not wanting a door between the lounge and the conservatory is the amazing views and sunsets (what I lose by being miles from the coast, I gain by being up high and overlooking open countryside)

This was actually raised on the (level 2) survey, but more from an EPC point of view. The conservatory was built under permitted development rights.

Thank you for this: it's sounding very much like I'll be wasting my money in getting the current roof beefed up in terms of additional insulation. I think I'll have to save up to get the roof replaced for a proper roof.

With that sort of wall configuration it is almost part of the house proper rather than a conservatory. Some sort of radiator is tge answer. If you put an internal door on it will keep things warmer in the winter, but it will then be nit be part of the house in the same way

We have a really large conservatory with lots of brick walls and a polycarbonate roof. It was always so cold in winter and cost a fortune to heat.

Thought for ages what to do, and decided on an insulated cladding inside the roof. We chose white panels but could have had a plaster finish.

It's been absolutely brilliant. We do have a door on ours into the house, but the temperature is the same now in both rooms.

Wish we'd done it years ago.

Do you mind sharing how much this cost? Considering similar.

@GertieLawrence I think prices start from about 4k for small, going up depending on what you want and size.
If you're in Yorkshire, I can pm you the company we used. They were brilliant and it's made such a difference.

We had the inside insulated and boarded, and it’s made a huge difference. The room is south east facing so gets a lot of heat, before it was unbearable to sit in when the weather is like it is at the moment, whereas now it is mostly comfortable.

However it is still colder in the winter, not as cold as it used to be, but you need some source of heating. We don’t have a radiator in ours either and opted for a fairly beefy fake fire, which does the job, but you do have to turn it on and wait for it to warm up.

We had a lightweight roof put on ours and it is now brilliant. It used to be freezing or boiling and now is same temp as the rest of the house.
Noise from rain previously was impossible to hear a conversation. Now not an issue at all.

We've swapped from a polycarb roof to a glass, doubled glazed and tinted roof on two different properties now, and both times it has turned the conservatories into lovely rooms that can be used year round.

I agree, and I think that's why it's not been unbearably hot in the hot and sunny weather we've had this past few weeks.

I think I can live with the summer heat in there, but the winter cold is something I can't live with.

Thanks for your reply: the system I've had the most competitive quote for sounds similar to what you went with (i.e. keeping the current shape but adding insulation and UPVC shiplap panels to finish). The quote I had was roughly £2k, and I was surprised it was so cheap... but it's only good value if it works (and all the reviews seem to indicate that it does work).

Thank you. I'm in the West Midlands, but I'd be really grateful if you could PM me the name of the company you used

That sounds very much like the system I've had the best/cheapest quote for. It's good to know that it's made a difference. Thank you.

We have much the same configuration and when we moved in had a new lightweight roof put on as the old one leaked and the conservatory was either freezing or boiling. We couldn’t have a proper insulated one as apparently the frame wasn’t strong enough to bear the weight. We’ve given up and are having it demolished and replaced with a proper small extension, remove the doors between and make it part of a kitchen/living room. Wish we hadn’t paid out for new roof.

Can I ask what kind of roof did you have put on? Was it just a replacement of the polycarbonate panels with insulated panels? Or a whole replacement roof (I've seen a lot of companies that replace the panels with aluminium tiles)

Can I ask roughly how much this cost and the approx size of your conservatory? That's another option I've been considering. Many thanks

This is my worry. I don't have thousands of pounds to waste if its really not going to make the conservatory useable.