Turning a Conservatory into a year-round room

kelbal

Hi,
We have a conservatory on the back of the house, a fairly big one. We have the usual issue, that its freezing in the winter and just not worth heating. Its separated from the kitchen with a sliding door. We're considering getting the roof re-done with a "Guardian" insulated roof. Its a light-weight but highly insulated roof, that supposedly turns the room into a liveable space. It can simply replace the existing roof, leaving all the windows in place. And then we'd remove the sliding door to connect the room to the rest of the house.
Our main worry is that even with the roof redone, the the huge amount of windows that would still be there would still have significant heat loss, and we'd end up with the entire back of the house being chilly.
I'd really appreciate thoughts from people who have had this done, or are in-the-know with this kind of thing.
Thanks

MicktheMan

In my experience, conservatories suffer at least 2 types of heatloss; convection (airtightness) and radiation (poor glazing) and to do a proper job is not as simple as upgrading the roof insulation unfortunately.

kelbal

MicktheMan wrote: »

In my experience, conservatories suffer at least 2 types of heatloss; convection (airtightness) and radiation (poor glazing) and to do a proper job is not as simple as upgrading the roof insulation unfortunately.

Thanks. Do you think going to the extra few thousand cost of replacing all the windows & double door with new A rated double glazing would make a significant difference?

MicktheMan

Tbh, I don't know what "A rated" double glazing is. You need glazing units with an overall (incl. frame) u-value of less than 0.8 to kill the radiation effect on your skin which generally means very good quality tg units. And at that, if your airtightness is poor you will still not be comfortable.

looksee

We found that an insulated roof was a huge improvement on the glass one, both winter and summer.

You might find that some curtains might make enough difference to the windows, provided the windows are reasonable to start with. Don't assume you need really heavy curtains, you can create issues with condensation. I found that cotton curtains were better than lined thick curtains. We currently have large expanses of glass in two rooms, new good quality windows though I don't know (without checking) what the rating is. We had no problems last winter.

Don't remove the sliding door until you are certain you have improved the situation.

phormium

I have a conservatory with a 'proper' roof and I don't use it in the winter, it's not the roof I find that is the problem it's the expanse of glass in the windows and doors. I would imagine curtains would greatly improve the heat loss in winter but it doesn't really lend itself design wise to curtains and to be honest I don't want rails etc in there so I just shut the door from about Oct on until spring again.

Any bit of sun though and it does warm up nicely even in winter, I find at Christmas for example when there are lots of people in the house and heat on I can get away with opening the doors if I need the space and sticking an oil filled radiator out there to take the chill off.