WWYD Extension/conservatory or move house

[Newbie2025]

Hello,

We are desperate for more space so weighing up our options of adding a single story extension , a conservatory (possibly with the supalite tiles so would have a solid roof) or just move.
We're in the north so house prices and building costs are manageable but any extension we do will cost more than the value it adds to the house however if we extend we would stay here longterm.
We really only need the extra space for a dining space and additional family space so a conservatory could work and the obvious attraction is the cost compared to an extension which is over double the cost of the cost of the conservatory however I see mixed reviews of whether conservatories are a waste of money as difficult to use year round.
Looking for any advice or experiences so help us make a decision.

We love our conservatory and use it a lot, for 9 months a year. However, it gets very cold in winter and would need a lot of heating so we just don't use it then. Hopefully someone else can give you an idea of the cost of heating an extension for a couple of hours a day to be able to eat in there all winter

If you need the space and can afford an extension that is a good backup, but I do love having a conservatory.

Thank you, do you have a glass roof on yours? There are so many options and so many price variations and my mind is boggled!
The plus side of staying is we love where we live and we have great neighbours but it's just cost of materials etc is so high that it may well be better financially to move.

We do have a glass roof, with some insulation panels on it. But because we have enough space to live without relying on it, we can't really justify heating it, when we don't need to. It was here when we bought the house though, so probably isn't the most modern in terms of insulation . . . Hopefully someone else will advise if they've got a conservatory they use all year . .

Even with a roof, conservatories are cold. You can't extend household central heating into them and they have so much glass that heat escapes everywhere

Don’t get a conservatory, get an extension that you can use all year round.

We are having an extension and we’ve been told that we won’t get the value back, but we want the extra space and will use it daily, so it’s worth it for us. Think about you and the now, not someone else in the future.

You can extend household heating into a conservatory. We have a radiator in ours and use it in winter.

Just moved last month from a house with a glass roofed conservatory and would never ever have one again. When we moved to that house initially 10 years before, my husband was hesitant to buy it having grown up in a house with a conservatory and describing it as like 'having a bus shelter attached to the house when it rains' but because this had a glass roof and was done really well, I loved it and thought the additional space would be great for when we eventually (hopefully) had kids. It was fine initially and then when we started getting our really hot summers (south facing house) it was honestly a furnace in the summers, my husband couldn't stand in there for more than 5 minutes without burning. Winters in it were bitterly cold and unusable. The thing I hated the most about it was the maintenance!! The glass roof cost us a lot to clean once a year (bird poo, moss and grime) and the sun shining in it used to make everything inside plastic and brittle and the sun bleached all of the cushions and furniture. Constantly hoovering up dead flies as well from when the doors were open in the summer and they used to fly in and then fry to death 😂
Never been more happy to move house and I wish the next owners the best of luck there during the summer!
After having 2 small kids and also needing more space, we decided to move and actually the conservatory made our house difficult to sell cos it's seen as 'a bit old school' by younger first time buyers. If you are going to do an extension I strongly encourage an orangery one instead with a covered roof and skylights.

Thank you, that's really helpful, if we go down the conservaty route then it would be with the supalite (solid) roof so we were hoping that would help but possibly not from other comments.
I think we might have to just manage with what we have and try and squeeze in some clever storage to free up the usable floor space and make as much room from the existing space or just move house! But I really don't know if i can face another house move and have been tentatively looking but nothing has really appealled in our tightish budget

Do you mind me asking the size and the rough cost of your extension?
I think if the budget would stretch then I think that would be my first choice and we don't want anything overly large or intricate , would be lean-to style with ideally a pitched roof but would be happy with a flat roof depending on costs.

We have a roofed conservatory like youre talking about and use it all year round (playroom).. its got 2 radiators on side walls and whilst it is chilly in winter it warms up quick when heating is on, and to be honest an extra layer of clothing and noone seems to mind... we do have to make sure door is shut so heat isn't lost from rest of house tho!

Thank you, we had hoped that we could do one full height wall with 2 sides of windows and a supalite roof and hoped that it would possibly be more usable than glass all around with a glass roof but in your experience would that not quite be the case? We would have an electric radiator in there to try and take the edge off the chill a bit.
But obviously an extension would be the dream and much more usable/practical but unfortunately more costly.
Moving is my last choice really but it might be that it's the more affordable option and a better option than a conservatory.

We had similar needs - extra space for dining and family when hosting. We were happy with everything else (bedrooms, location, neighbours etc) and went for an extension. It cost 80k and probably added only 50k to potential sale price. However moving also costs money and we had no use for the extra bedrooms that would come with the additional space downstairs. I would loathe to be paying a bigger mortgage for bigger house where half the extra space ( extra bedrooms) is of no value to us on daily basis.
The new extension is better built with more insulation than the original part of the house so we haven't seen any real increase in heating costs.

I’ve never been inside a conservatory in winter that’s been a nice experience. Ditto in the heights of summer. Even one with a proper roof on it. I would be worried putting one on would actually put future buyers off. We had a giant conservatory on the back of our house when I was growing up; all the things @NewBuildNewbie have said are true!!

What are the options like around you on Rightmove if you were looking to move? Could you get the extra space that way or would you be moving into something with the same space issues?

We have just done an extension on our house under permitted development (single storey). While we won’t get the value back if we sold I don’t think (maybe we would), we also didn’t have to pay stamp duty and moving costs and have the massive upheaval of moving house. Also didn’t have to redecorate or renovate a new house to our needs. So all these things meant financially it was probably cheaper to stay in our current house and suck up the cost of extending. I guess you could look at moving to a slightly cheaper area?

Get some quotes? To see if it is actually an option for you to extend or not?

We like our conservatory but even with a roof it is freezing just now but warms up in 10 mins..: isn’t too hot in the summer now with the roof rather than glass. But if you were using it as a dining room is it attached to the kitchen? If so in the winter you might still need to close the doors to enable it to heat up effectively and not impact on the house temperature… are there other options like knocking through to make more open plan living? You could share a plan of your downstairs for suggestions?

"The conservatory must be thermally separated from the house by external quality windows, doors and walls.The conservatory must be fitted with its own independent heating system that can be controlled separately from the rest of the house. Extending your central heating without isolating your conservatory radiators will mean the conservatory is no longer exempt from Part L building regulations regarding heat loss. Essentially, once a permanent heating system is installed that cannot be controlled separately, your conservatory will be treated like a full home extension and will be subject to the same rules."

Have to added up all the costs of moving (stamp duty, solicitors, removals and estate agent fees, additional interest on more expensive property, and poss costs of readying your horse for market)? This is all lost money. If you have good neighbours and like the house, I would rather invest this money in your current house, even if it doesn’t add to the value in the short term.

Thank you, that's pretty much the situation we are in, upstairs is great but its the ground floor that's a bit of a squeeze.
And we love our house, i think we need to just sit tight and wait a bit longer to save up and go for an extension.

My in-laws have a massive conservatory (fits 8 seater dining table, sofas, TV, bookshelves and all toys and accessories for a child and baby and is the primary living space for six people year-round, we even sleep in there when we stay for Christmas) built 15-20 years ago, and it has two central heating radiators in it. It does have one solid exterior wall and half-height windows the rest of the way instead of floor-to-ceiling glass. They deliberately had it built with proper foundations, though they regret going with a conservatory roof now as they've had to have half of the panels replaced due to hail at different times at great cost, and it has to be cleaned every few years. Keeping it cool in summer is a bigger concern I'd say, it might be expensive to heat in winter but even with a huge ceiling fan it's impossible to get to a comfortable temp in summer, tolerable is the best that can be done due to the clear roof.

I think if you go with a proper foundation and not full glass walls you should be able to get a normal roof and tiles put on, that's my plan for when we can afford it on our house as we will knock through from the kitchen.

Thank you for your advice, you're right about the costs of moving, we've been chatting about it again this morning and weighing everything up and with the helpful advice from here I think we are going to sit tight, save up for a bit longer and go for an extension.
If we add an extension we would have no need to move as the rest of the house is exactly what we need and we love the location and nothing else around us in our budget is really giving us what we need so i'm not too worried about never getting the money back, it was just something one of the builders who quoted an extension for us mentioned which then gave me something else to think about when weighing up out options and I can't make decisions at the best of times without adding more things to consider!

My parents added a conservatory to their house many moons ago - wasn't even double- glazed back then, but was updated eventually. My mother loved to eat lunch in it on a nice but not too hot day, and the cat quite liked it too...... otherwise I've never seen the point of it. Too hot in summer, too cold in winter (but a nice view of the garden.)

We added a conservatory to our last house but it filled an area between our living room and kitchen (at back of lr, side of kitchen) so became the dining area of the house and linked the two rooms. That was well worth it.

Yeah we've had some quotes in for both and extension and a conservatory with a solid roof and there's quite a difference, we would need to keep the door between the kitchen and conservatory if we went down thay route which would be fine but I think after the helpful advice and chatting about it this morning then an extension is going to be the way to go and were just going to wait until we have saved more towards it as I think its just going to be the better option irrespective of whether we would ever get the cost back when selling it as we plan to stay here indefinitely if we extend.
The conservatory seemed like an appealing option until asking for advise on here but we have definitely ruled it out now, I think overall it's going to be false economy.

PS our conservatory had a solid side wall where it adjoined the fence and was open to the kitchen on the opposite side, so only had a glass roof and one glass side with door to the garden, so it was really just an extension with a glass roof.

It's so difficult, moving house is equally as much hassle to be fair! We had some storage benches in the conservatory that doubled up as seats and storage which freed up floor space. They lifted up on hinges. The only great thing about that conservatory was how much storage it had 😂 I've attached some pictures of it when we were in the middle of reupholstering it (cos the sun bleached the first material and made it all rip) but could be a storage idea!

We have a conservatory with a proper solid roof, double glazed windows and underfloor heating. It’s attached to our kitchen and open plan living area room and it’s where we have our dining table. It’s perfectly warm throughout the winter. In fact much warmer than other parts of the house! It does get warm in summer though. When it’s really hot we use blackout blinds and an air con unit. I’d have preferred an extension but the cost was just not worth it.