Conservatory with open access from kitchen

Tombo2001

Am looking at buying a house that has a large conservatory attached to the kitchen. It is effectively open plan, the original back wall of the house has been partly removed and it is one big room where half is inside the orignal house and half is conservatory.

I believe the conservatory is about ten years old, I dont have any information on U-Values.....its UPVC window and looks sturdy enough.

Question would be.......would this be impossible to heat in the winter? If it was snowing outside, a November evening with -5 outdoors......would the heating bill be going through the roof?

Or are conservatories somehow more thermally efficient than I imagine.

martinn123

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Am looking at buying a house that has a large conservatory attached to the kitchen. It is effectively open plan, the original back wall of the house has been partly removed and it is one big room where half is inside the orignal house and half is conservatory.

I believe the conservatory is about ten years old, I dont have any information on U-Values.....its UPVC window and looks sturdy enough.

Question would be.......would this be impossible to heat in the winter? If it was snowing outside, a November evening with -5 outdoors......would the heating bill be going through the roof?

Or are conservatories somehow more thermally efficient than I imagine.

Conservatories by their nature are not as well insulated as say a solid roof extention.

Also if its 10 yrs old, the glass may not be as good as you could get today.

what's in the Roof, Glass or Polycarbonate,?? if its poly, try and find out the thickness.

I am assuming the house comes with a BER Cert, that may give you some more information.

Lastly what direction does it face, hopefully South, or West, that way you will get the benefit of heat gain, on sunny days, even in winter.

Tombo2001

House is south facing so it would get the sun allright. Thanks for the reply. Surveyor says it shouldn't be a big deal vis a vis heat loss.....

martinn123

Tombo2001 wrote: »

House is south facing so it would get the sun allright.

That's a positive, when the sun shines, however it does'nt happen every day.
Have a look again at the other questions I suggested.

Tombo2001 wrote:

Thanks for the reply. Surveyor says it shouldn't be a big deal vis a vis heat loss.....

That's a big statement which I would not accept at face value, without a lot more information.

My initial thoughts on your question....

Tombo2001 wrote:

Question would be.......would this be impossible to heat in the winter? If it was snowing outside, a November evening with -5 outdoors......would the heating bill be going through the roof?

Definitely....Yes.

Tombo2001

martinn123 wrote: »

That's a positive, when the sun shines, however it does'nt happen every day.
Have a look again at the other questions I suggested.




That's a big statement which I would not accept at face value, without a lot more information.

My initial thoughts on your question....



Definitely....Yes.

THanks for this.

Yes it has a glass roof. I believe UV is around 2.5.

I will ask them for heating bills.

martinn123

Tombo2001 wrote: »

THanks for this.

Yes it has a glass roof. I believe UV is around 2.5.

I will ask them for heating bills.

Just to put that in context, if you were getting a Glass Roof today, Soft Coat, Low E Glass, with Argon gas, would have a U Value of 1.1.
Triple Glazed would be 0.7

2.5 would not be acceptable today.

Tombo2001

martinn123 wrote: »

Just to put that in context, if you were getting a Glass Roof today, Soft Coat, Low E Glass, with Argon gas, would have a U Value of 1.1.
Triple Glazed would be 0.7

2.5 would not be acceptable today.

Point taken, thanks.

sky6

Read Thread with interest. First I would say is get a new surveyor he clearly doesn't know what he is talking about. Or a least get him to provided evidence to back up what he says.
I have a Double Glazed Conservatory on the back of the House. I also took out the Back Door and side panel to make it open plan with the Kitchen.
Big Big Mistake.
So much so that it's more used as a storeroom and an airing room.

Here's the problems, It get too hot to stay in for any length of time in the Summer and too Cold to stay in during the Depths of Winter, and I even put a Radiator into it. The Rad helps but only a little.
The Wife even complains about how cold the Kitchen is now in Winter and the House was always very warm.
I plan on Taking the Poly Roof off and putting a proper Tiled Roof on with insulation. This should keep it Cooler in Summer and Warmer in Winter.
If that doesn't work a new Back Door is going back up.
Hope this helps your decision.

martinn123

sky6 wrote: »

Read Thread with interest. First I would say is get a new surveyor he clearly doesn't know what he is talking about. Or a least get him to provided evidence to back up what he says.
I have a Double Glazed Conservatory on the back of the House. I also took out the Back Door and side panel to make it open plan with the Kitchen.
Big Big Mistake.
So much so that it's more used as a storeroom and an airing room.

Here's the problems, It get too hot to stay in for any length of time in the Summer and too Cold to stay in during the Depths of Winter, and I even put a Radiator into it. The Rad helps but only a little.
The Wife even complains about how cold the Kitchen is now in Winter and the House was always very warm.
I plan on Taking the Poly Roof off and putting a proper Tiled Roof on with insulation. This should keep it Cooler in Summer and Warmer in Winter.
If that doesn't work a new Back Door is going back up.
Hope this helps your decision.

Not as easy as it sounds, you have a Poly roof, so the windows were designed to take minimum weight, there are various Co's peddling replacement roofs, but they can be no more heavy than the original, so Aluminium Sheeting and little insulation. Tiles, etc, much heavier.

Do a lot of research

Cerco

Did you review the BER report?
It should give you all the details and recommendations.

sky6

Thanks for the suggestion and advice, I take your point as I understand the problems. Definitely not a job for a novice. But in structural terms I know what I'm doing. I also used the term Tiles loosely as I know there are low density products out there with good insulation values.
However I've just built a new Garage so my Conservatory will have to wait a while maybe next year.

Tombo2001

Cerco wrote: »

Did you review the BER report?
It should give you all the details and recommendations.

It didnt explicitly mention the conservatory.