[Closed] Tell me about you conservatory roof

They have knocked £600 off is we say yes tonight to the roof

Alarms ringing .....

We had out polycarbonate roof replaced about 18 months ago. We had the choice of a solid lightweight roof or a replacement insulated glass roof. The price was similar for each at about £6k for a 5m x 5m conservatory. The supplier reckoned the thermal/insulation qualities of each were similar.

In the end we went with glass and we're glad we did as it leaves the conservatory a lovely light room where you can now lie on the couch and look at the sky.

HOWEVER....while not quite as cold in the summer or quite as hot in the winter, it has not made it into an all-year completely useable room, but this could be because we only had the roof done and didn't replace the two glazed sidewalls with better insulated panels, nor do we have curtains or blinds.

The whole roof was done in a day, including glass and new roof frame to fit it on.

Parents have just got rid of polycarb roof and replaced with some form of treated wonder glass roof. It's very clear and looks nice if that's your thing, personally I'm not a conservatory man myself.

Anyhoo. they started off with the joke quotes from Anglian/Everest etc. at £18,000 which dropped to £14,500 if you sign today. Then went to local bigish firms which got it to £6,500. They eventually paid £4,500 to a one man and his mate outfit who by all accounts did a great job and supplied what appears to be a quality product.

It's going to be replaced with a real building this summer....

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Glass roof here

We are currently having ours done. Keeping the base and then having a Pilkington A+ blue glass type thing on top, brick sides and french doors and windows next to them with a dwarf wall. Currently at £14k for that but we have one more coming in next week who I'm hoping will be cheaper, they've said they can be so i have my fingers crossed. This includes a pelmet inside and all plastered, electrics etc.

The whole process has been a ball ache to be honest though, we had one company who said to us £12K will go a long way with us, they're quote came in at £23.5K.

If they can knock £600 off tonight, they can do it tomorrow too. They either want your business or they don't!

I'd tell them to do one, solely on the whole £600 off but only for tonight thing. Pressure sales at its best.

we had the same dilema and destroyed the conservatory and had an extension just a bit bigger than your conservatory. Proper heating with a WC, a huge cupboard & a skylight, got rid of the patio doors and it has extended the downstairs and it's great to be honest, we love it. Cost about 20k all in with flooring and rads and whatnot.
The downside for you if you consider this avenue that it's unlikely to be finished for the summer now.

I'd tell them to do one, solely on the whole £600 off but only for tonight thing. Pressure sales at its best.

Likewise.

I once had a roofer cold-call as they do, "we were working nearby and noticed..." etc. I knew I needed a few bits so said yeah, give me a quote. £600. I said right, give me a card, I'll give you a shout when I get paid. By repeatedly saying they couldn't do it today as I hadn't been paid yet I got him down to £80. Still told him to do one.

I am about to sort my roof out. Multi layer 19 sheet insulation is £125 a roll from Screwfix. This is fitted underneath batters screwed to the roofing spars. Then overcladding with White Cladding or 300mm Soffit board. Total cost around £250 and a days work.

bruneep - Member 

Glass roof here

Do those blinds offer any insulation or just privacy?

just privacy. we dont use late in evening more through the day time.

glass is Pilkington K Glass™

bear-uk before and after pics would be good. Interested in this myself.

Everest / Anglian and many other installers all use the same roof from Ultraframe, glass has always been a better bet for insulation than polycarbonate.

Be wary of a DIY conversion, the roofs are not designed to be mucked about with, there can be heavy loading on a roof during bad weather and it's the roof that's the structural component. Plus drilling the bars is not a great idea as moisture is designed to run down them and out the bottom, drill holes may result in water coming in.

Next door but one has had something done - a sort of faux roof put on. Looks OK, but can tell its plastic. I can't imagine its alot better on insulation. There was something on Facebook doing the rounds a while back, a company that insulates whatever roof you have there, battoned it out and installs PVC tongue and groove type panels. So retains your existing roof. looked fine from inside and I'd imagine this is alot cheaper than re-roofing.

Personally if it is going to cost upwards of £15k+ then you're better off tearing it down and getting an extension. The build costs for my 8mx4m single story extension was £26k which left me with a 'naked' room with rads with ready to decorate including cost of fitting flooring and kitchen, but not supply of. OK the total cost was about £55k by the time we'd upgraded a few items, fully furnished it and put a few nice touches in, but it has transformed the way we use the house way way more than a conservatory.

Following this with interest... We're also getting quotes to replace our polycarb conservatory roof as its knackered, and got the same hard sell from Anglian, i.e order now as prices going up next week blah blah blah.

On that note, can anyone give any recommendations for replacing conservatory roofs in the Winchester area?

thanks everyone. The architect that drew up the plans if going to speak to one of the builders again, to do us a quote for doing just the extension, without all the extra bits and without taking down the original house wall and putting in a support. We have another local company quoting as well for the equinox system.

We bought our first house 3 years ago and it had a bit of a ropey conservatory with a polycarb roof, the temp swings where horrific and combined with the noise when it rained it was quite simply crap and had to go.

BUT having just stretched ourselves to buy the house there wasn't much left in the pot so we thought outside the box.

We built a timber frame that sits on the inner edge frames of the conservatory walls filled the gap between the roof and the timer frame with loft insulation then attached plaster board to create a ceiling.

It was ment to be a temp measure but ill be honest its perfect, it looks nice, is very quiet and the temp swings are just as you would expect with a large area of glass, it really did make all the difference.

They have knocked £600 off is we say yes tonight to the roof

As others have said. Walk away. Never fall for their hard sell, a decent company shouldn't need to hard sell anything.

We had triple wall polycarb on the old timber framed conservatory. Very very hot inside during the summer months. Some large candles we had in there melted into pools of wax one day whilst we were out. It's also noisy when it was raining if that's a factor for you. Insulation...zero.

New conservatory to replace the old one has Pilkington K glass roof. Insulation better than the polycarb but still not great. The biggest difference its a lot less hot during the summer months. It's made a big difference. I guess though if it's ever too hot you can simply open the hopper windows or doors. Drumming from the rain significantly reduced but still audible. As for the "self cleaning" properties of the glass! Well, it self cleans to a certain extent but it takes an awful long time. Easier just giving the thing a wash 😀 Biggest difference is that you can see out of the roof.

I'd have glass again.

We too need to do something with ours. Everest wanted £25k to replace the Upvc and glazing only! (re-using the existing stub walls)

What about something like this: [url= http://myconservatoryroofreplacement.com/timber/ ]Clicky[/url]
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Dont know how much it would be, but sent off for a quote for my 4m x 3m conservatory.

\the previous owners converted the conservatory to a garden room by changing to an insulated GRP flat roof and insulating the walls.
Doesn't get too hot, is still nice a bright, but with no heating it's still ice cold in the winter.

Bfith, thats a disater waiting to happen, theres no strength in the windows, the roof holds it all together, the windows aren't designed to take that weight. Conservatory roofs are properly engineered for the loads they are subjected to.

thats a disaster waiting to happen

thats a disaster waiting to happen

- thought as much myself. But apparently they'll do a structural survey first and there's a 10 year warranty.

Really? Unless they know what the strength of the window frames are, they can't make a calculation. All UPVC windows are different, so I'd go with the 'it's a disaster waiting to happen' quote.

I am just completing an extension which involved a vaulted ceiling and the Struc Engineer was asking for so much more than we thought was necessary. You would need a SE to provide calcs before doing anything. The 10 year warranty isn't worth the paper its written on! That roof will be pushing outwards and as you can imagine a cheap plastic conservatory has no ability to withstand those forces.

Ours is an Anglian Ultraframe roof 3x5m which apparently is about as big as you can have with a single span glass roof. It has a very light blue tint and is very effective at cutting out the heat from the sun. As the sun tracks round you can feel it through the side glazing but not through the roof. We also have frame-fitted pleated blinds which attach to the glazing bead at top & bottom and they look lovely when down in the evening for privacy. We don't have any roof blinds.We love our conservatory and practically live in it during the warmer months. With a bit of heating it is used all year round.

bear-uk - Member
I am about to sort my roof out. Multi layer 19 sheet insulation is £125 a roll from Screwfix. This is fitted underneath batters screwed to the roofing spars. Then overcladding with White Cladding or 300mm Soffit board. Total cost around £250 and a days work

This sounds ace...pics please once done. Not much weight to mess about with load support too.

Reluctantwrinkly sounds about right, anything bigger is usual supported by a portal frame. At that size it'll need tie bars to keep it from spraying out I guess, that's the main problem with that timber roof and the additional weight.

Had another quote from SWC £11500 including all new frames and a equinox supalite roof. The side glass will be pilkington K S glass. So I think we have a winner. Also its a company I've dealt with before so a bit a happier with that price!! By the way the same but with a glass roof was £9000, so not a great deal in it.

Had someone round today to quote for drawing up plans for a small side extension (more a porch but with cupboards and a toilet in it).

They were looking at our polycarbonate conservatory roof as we are also looking st plans for the future where we could add a wrap around extension onto the back of he new porch when we have money.

He suggested a new roof for the conservatory as an easy step for making the room more useable- but a solid insulated roof. True way they do it is different to all these facebook conversions you see with a wooden frame donked on the top with plastic tiles.

They have 70mm diameter metal posts cut into the corners of the existing conservatory and run a steel ring beam round the top of the windows and join to the house. They then build a full timber roof with a lot of insulation and fully plasterboard it out. Proper solid tiles are put on the outside of the roof rather than the plastic things. He thought it would probably cost about £5- 6k.

Essentially you can then remove and fully replace the upvc units later on when required - the roof is self supporting with the steels.

I wonder what they'd do with the foundation of each of the steels? Sounds interesting though. I'm still liking the sound of the DIY insulation above though!

I have finally got around to putting in a false ceiling in my conservatory.

I wanted it to be as light as possible so made a wooden frame with cross-struts, mounted 25mm Celotex between the batons and fixed some UPVC cladding to finish it off.

I put 6 LED down-lighters in the ceiling (they are wired into a junction box and then powered from a 3-pin plug (so should be exempt from wiring regs). I will probably used my spare Amazon Dot to turn them on/off.

The frame is screwed through brock walls on 2 sides and into the UPVC frame on the remaining sides.

It has made a massive difference to how hot it gets. I had to move some of the Celotex panels whilst running the cables in and as soon as they were removed the heat in the conservatory increased very quickly.

Hopefully it will keep it a bit warmer in the winter, we have sliding doors between the conservatory and the house, but the kids use it for TV/Playstation and it is normally unbearably cold in there during the winter.

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Hopefully it will keep it a bit warmer in the winter, we have sliding doors between the conservatory and the house, but the kids use it for TV/Playstation and it is normally unbearably cold in there during the winter.

Do you have a rad in the conservatory? If so, was it still cold despite this?

I have a reasonably large radiator in there but always had it on the low setting because we rarely used it in the winter. Because the door is shut most of the time I didn't see the point of letting all of the heat out of the conservatory roof (I am tight!).

My diy project is on hold until the boss makes her mind up that it will look ok.
Wouldn't mind but got an expensive roll of insulation kicking around the garage.
The white panels above where what I intended to use only keeping the to original roofline and the superfoil insulation would be seen from the outside as a silver ish coloured plastic roof.

We had this built earlier this year.......

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(ignore the grass & Wilma)

It replaced a cheapie Wickes wooden affair that was rotten, which had a polycarb roof & crappy glass. We never used it, but we've never been out of this one. It's some kind of fancy roof glass which supposedly keeps out 85.753% of heat from the sun or something.
Anyway, It's zillion times better than the old one.

Got home last night and the conservatory was a very pleasant temperature, it had the sun on it all afternoon. Before adding the false ceiling it would have been unbearable.

Ours is a lean-to type construction, fancy self cleaning tinted roof, double glazed sides and brick bottom.
It's warm enough to sit in all year round.

Eskay, how was screwing batons onto the upvc? How did you do it? I'm going to do something similar with mine but possibly up into the vaulted ceiling rather than flat, so I can still access the roof window

Glasgowdan - I used self-tapping screws at a reasonably small pitch (about every 20cm). I joined all of the outer frame at the corners with L shaped angle brackets.

My original intention was to have a small support pillar at the corner of the two 'UPVC walls' (not the brick walls) but the structure was so secure it did not need it.

I don't think I would go with the extra work of making the window still accessible, mine is so much cooler now a roof window would not be needed.

Thanks, sounds promising. One issue I have is that the shortest span in our conservatory is 4.2m (x5.5m), so I'll need to use heavier timber to stay straight over that length. I'd LIKE to use thicker insulation board than 25mm as well but, of course, this adds even more weight.

I could simply put a new drop light onto the existing fitting too which would make the electricals as easy as they can possibly be.

Our 4m square conservatory was so useless it's now in pieces, and the new bigger brick built extension is just coming out of the ground. I always thought conservatories were great - until I had one.

Our c0nservatory is bloody great though...a year round room. I just want to take the edge off the temperature spikes.

How do you feel about the 25mm insulation eskay? Reckon it's enough? I've seen some cheap on gumtree

This is what you need.

http://www.screwfix.com/p/ybs-superquilt-multilayer-insulation-1-5-x-10m/68120

Dont know where the 40mm comes from as its about 10mm

Ours is polycarb, we use it as a beer fridge in winter and a humungous cold frame in summer. That's probably not the solutions you're looking for but it's free and we could keep ten thousand bottles of beer cool

We had a superlite one fitted a year ago and it's been great. £10k or thereabouts including all the plastering. Really warm in the winter (we haven't bothered fitting a radiator) and cool in the summer with a velux fitted. Can't recommend it highly enough if you want to claim a room back to be able to use.

Jim, £10k... nah. I'll do the ceiling for £500 or so. We already use it all year with very little hassle so it's really just taking the extremes of temp away a bit.

Bear UK that stuff would be £400. I can get rigid board for £100 on gumtree so I think that's the winner. I can see the foil roll being easier to fit though

Just as a point consider ventilation above the insulation otherwise you get condensation forming. According to the manufacturers info the multi layer foil insulation needs a min of 25mm air gap both sides. To maintain this considering the insulation isn't rigid and therefore the gap won't be consistent I would say allow 50mm both sides. Add this to the insulation thickness and you may find its thicker overall than rigid insulation with a 50mm cross ventilated air gap above. Lack of ventilation causes all sorts of problems which happen unseen.

glasgowdan - Member

How do you feel about the 25mm insulation eskay? Reckon it's enough? I've seen some cheap on gumtree

I think it will be fine. My aim was to keep it as light as possible whilst still offering an improvement in insulation.

I have felt the roof on days when it has had the sun on it for several hours and it is just 'warm' (the rooms would have been unbearable without it). If it insulates from heat that well it should be OK in reverse.

Just waiting to get some pvc cladding now. I have found it in 5.5m lengths so I will be able to clad the ceiling perpendicular to the beams and save having to add fixing batons between the 1.2m widths. It has been like this for a couple of months and what a difference - we don't close the doors from the kitchen to the conservatory any more as it's basically as comfortable as the kitchen now and is a wholly open and useable space for the family.

I've taken off the old conservatory light and wired up a new ceiling light, nice and close to the ceiling so it doesn't get in the way. The supply to the light was constant live, switched only at the light fitting itself (plus a master "whole conservatory" switch near the floor on the way in) so I've just put a bathroom switch next to it on the ceiling. Doesn't look TOO bad! 🙂

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