conservatory, yay or nay?

[misdee]

we are running out of space here and cant see how else we can extend our living area. bedrooms we can cope with being small but not living areas IYKWIM. sister has had a conservatory built and tbh i dont like hers, they dont have any blinds or heating/cooling system in palce so in winter its freezing and in summer its burning.

are conservatories a good idea? i dont think the council will extend the bungalow for us as we're within the 5 person limit. and we cant get a bigger bungalow or move to a house as dh cant walk upstairs.

Best thing we had done was had a conservatory built, and its just been finished. We use it as a playroom, the only form of heating we have is underfloor heating, so far (and during that cold spell) it seemed warm enough but wont know until it goes through a full winter. If we need more we will just plug in a radiator, however, its got big double doors from the dining room which we leave open so heat does get in there from the house. The size is 5m x 3m and this seems a good size for a playroom, we dont have any blinds up, but it seems quite shaded at the moment so hopefully it wont get too hot, and anyway during the summer the kids will be in the garden playing. It so nice as we have been able to reclaim our dining room and living room from toys. But shop around, huge difference in prices for the same size, we found a £10,000 difference which is huge.

so presumably you can put it in any window? - so why isn't it standard? (saved the link)

I suppose it would put a lot of window cleaners out of work!

Coldtea!
I thought of you when I read the title of this thread!! LOL

Might be OK for you misdee but personally don't want to take up our garden space. Would say that make sure it is a decent size or else won't be much use with the kids.

I love ours. Although we probably don't use it as much as we should, or for the purpose we had it built. WE had it built about 2 years ago, as a chill out, toy free room!!! Now I have my craft table set up out there most of the time!

Ours is about 4m x 4m edwardian, with one full brick, plastered wall. We have leaded light in the top openers and a must-roof vents.Because are south facing we found the first summer unbearable, so last year invested in roof blinds, which not only help to reduce glare, reduce heat in summer but also act as insulation in the winter. We do have a rad out there, but we need an extra free standing heater on the coldest days. I would say at some stage we will get air-con installed.

We too, have 2 large 2 seater settees out there, and it is great to sit out there with a cuppa or a glass of wine , just looking at the garden, or the kiddies playing...oh ...the thought of "just sitting!!"...doesn't happen that often...

Sorry for rambling on...if your garden is big enough, go fr it. One piece of advice is have loads of different companies around to give quotes. Not just for prices, but we found we gained a lot of knowledge about designs from the most expensive company.

We're in the process of completing ours. We have an Edwardian style off the back of our lounge. About 5m x 3.7m. Like Dingle we have a plastered wall on one side, but we have small non-opening windows. Also have glass tinted roof and roof vent too. Two patio doors to the garden.

Plan to use it as play room, however, having just had the carpet laid I think I may move in here myself. No blinds yet, but it's on my list of things to do!

Absolutely love it - and wish we'd done it years ago.

We've got a 3x5m one that has two brick walls (with small windows along the top) and it really does feel like a proper room. We also have sofas and bookcases in there.

We have 2 electric oil filled radiators which cope fine with heating it up.

We are currently wondering about roof blinds because it does get very hot. In fact that's why I logged on today. I want to get people's opinions about how effective they are at reducing heat. I think I'll go and do it in a separate thread though.