[Closed] I finally converted my conservatory

Your forum name should be Austin Powers.

Yeah, baby, yeah.

So has this solved the usual conservatory issues? Mine is a useful space for about six months a year, but would love to use it year round.

Nice and not a million miles away from a full roof conversion that cost us 10k. We've just moved into ours as our sitting room for the summer as the conversion has made it a usable room. Enjoy.

That looks great.

@matt the lights are usually soft white but I've been using the lights to teach my boy his colours. He loves changing them. Green is his favourite.

@bagstard, don't know yet, it's early days. The electric wall heater in there is enough to heat it at night but instead of being on constant we turn it off after 20 minutes and it stays warm for a few hours before going on again.

The main test will be keeping the summer heat out!

you have done a nice job! Looking forward to the summer update, even if not perfect in the height of summer I'm sure it will be a vast improvement.

Show us a pic when there's a foot of snow on the outside added to all the extra weight on the inside! 🙂

Have you put ventilation in the cavity above the insulation?

Looks lovely.

From a 'it's the sort of thing I think about' perspective: Did anyone look at it from an enginnering/structural perspective as to where the additional weight is loading the existing structure?

Roxanne?

Is that you?

Can I ask how have you skimmed the plaster. I would imagine there would be a lot of movement in the roof (expansion in summer). Just worried it might crack? Daughter has a similar problem hence the question.

Looks nice but keep an eye out for damp. I would expect you to get a lot of condensation on the inside of the roof glass in the winter.

I can't see this lasting! Especially with issues on condensation and sagging due to the weight.

If you're happy with it though, good luck to you.

I'd be interested to see what it looks like from the outside

Looks lovely.

From a ‘it’s the sort of thing I think about’ perspective: Did anyone look at it from an enginnering/structural perspective as to where the additional weight is loading the existing structure?

I wouldn’t worry too much about the weight. I took down a similar terminally rotten softwood one and despite the rot it was incredibly strong. The replacement conservatory I installed is fine with 100kg of me walking round on the roof beams. The fancy glass in the new one makes it a much more usable space.

People always like to moan about conservatories being a PITA.

I reckon ours is useable (>20C) Febuary till November as it's south facing, which means that probably Febuary-May and September-November it pretty much heats the house if the kitchen door is left open during the day to let the heat in. Dec-Feb it's still warm/dry enough to dry clothes with the kitchen door closed.

Then in summer it's a place to go sit after a BBQ, as opposed to trying to keep warm burning every bit of damp wood within a mile radius in the firepit/chiminea/Unni/Brazier (delete according to middle classness and prevailing fashion).

I did ours 2.5 years ago.

I didn't use plasterboard though, I skinned it with lightweight UPVC boards in white.

As long as you leave 40mm + between the inner face of the polycarb and the insulation, condensation is not a problem.

ours has been great, we have a useable room in winter now and in summer it's fine.

No condensation issues at all in ours. i did add some small double glzeing vents in the opening windows as a precaution though.

Cost = £250 all in

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Like the idea of the lightweight UPVC boards - good work!

You can buy UPVC sheet in a 2400 x 1200 size as well. Ours was called Palfoam, and it would act as a lightweight sheet without the ridges that UPVC boards would give.

@Damascus, @Vottexracing have you got any pics of the outside that you can post?

I’ve got round the “winter” part by installing a big wood burner. When that’s running it will easily sit at 18 degrees regardless of the temp outside.

Summer is another topic. We have doors at both ends so just open them and out a fan on to push a bit of air through

I want to convert mine and the one you have done looks great. Thing is all that weight looks like it is resting on plastic window cills?

I’m in love, are you single?

We had the same issue on our big conservatory.

We got a guardian roof as a complete replacement for the existing pvc one - it's about a foot thick with a lot of insulation. It's transformed the room so now it's maybe 1 cooler/hotter than the rest of the house. It did cost a lot more than the figures being mentioned above but I think it was well worth it.

I would have concerns as mentioned about the weight of snow though. We have a beam across it for that reason. We didn't really want it there for aesthetic reasons but they were absolutely clear that it was necessary though of course with the amount of insulation ours had it will inherently weight a fair bit.

Hi, to answer a few questions

1) picture of the outside. It doesn't look any different and I've left a gap so I can replace the polycarbonate if I need to.

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2) the battens are screwed to the metal beams, nothing is resting on the edges. There's a 10mm gap all the way round thats filled with flexible filler to allow movement. I've plastered it so if it cracks I'll just patch it.

3) I was quoted £1500 for the exact same thing to a raw plaster finish. My neighbour did his, the company did it in the exact same way. They've done loads and seem to know what they are doing. I've just copied them.

4) it's been hardly used by us so if it falls down it's no real loss. One day I'll build an extension, this is just a temporary thing to keep us going. When it snows I'll be out with a brush 😁

5) just for matt

love

as always in these things ask yourself - what would mcmoonter do.  In this case he'd have attached a couple of railway sleepers across and filled the space about with firewood* so you are probably good to go

* this might not be 100% true

I'm guessing for the condensation issue it depends on whether or not you have managed to create a proper vapour barrier but I've seen lots of 'professional' stuff where they don't seem to be aware and it still works. maybe

I really like the idea of this. Our conservatory is quite a waste of space at the moment and we've been looking at re-roofing it with the lightweight solid roofs that are available but this would be a whole lot cheaper.

looks like a cracking grow house, might be best frosting up those windows though! 😆

Interesting, the main problem with our conservatory is the noise when it rains.
Would be good to know how much this cuts the noise down by.

@dirkpitt74 it was the first thing I noticed. You can still hear it if it's heavy rain but it's muffled.

Kind of the difference between a tent and a campervan.

@dirkpitt74 it was the first thing I noticed. You can still hear it if it’s heavy rain but it’s muffled.

Same here, and Damascus beat me to the piccy, you can't tell it's been done from the outside unless you look very closely.

It's one of the best £250 we have spent

@Vortexracing, how long has yours been converted for?

since October 2016

@vortex - how do you fix the sheet to the battens? Is there a special fitting for the job?

If you mean the insulation sheet then you just staple it, if you mean the UPVC, then you use small nails on the tongue end (left sticky out bit in the piccie) and the next piece covers the nails.

I did a similar thing to the conservatory in my old house, made it warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.

I want to do the same thing to mine, can somebody post the insulation used please?

I used this multi foil insulation from ECO homes. I bought the cheaper version as I'm not living in it so it wasn't important enough for the extra money. Buy the foil tape that they offer, it's really good. Screwfix etc sell similar products

https://www.ecohome-insulation.com/?i=938094&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgri3l5_d4QIVGMDICh2YGANdEAAYASAAEgI6svD_BwE

Apparently 1cm deep is the equivalent of 12 cm traditional insulation.

Vortex - I did mean the Pvc sheet, thanks

I really like the look of these; it would make a big difference to my conservatory.

The problem is I've got skylights; not sure how to work around them

I used celotex and uPVC cladding on mine but my roof was flat, so a lot easier to work with. My father-in-law however was so impressed with the difference it made, he did exactly the same to his (with a roof similar to OP) and just lost the height of the original roof.

Hmm, tempted to try doing ours now. It's an older style lean to with brick walls either end and wooden joists running from the house down to the windows supporting some of that horrible polycarbonate roof material.

My worry would be that most of the light for the dining room and kitchen comes through it so I don't want to block it off too much.

Might make some fabric drapes to hang between the joists as a prototype.

My worry would be that most of the light for the dining room and kitchen comes through it so I don’t want to block it off too much.

Same with us WRT the dining room, but I pleasantly surprised by how little light we lost (hardly any to be truthful)

I'll get a piccy of the stuff we used and post it in a few mins.

Are you calling it the convertary now?

It does reduce the light but it's still got 3 sides. Also with leds now you can put light back in and the running costs are low. Certainly a lot cheaper than heating a conservatory and having the lights off.

I rarely go in the dining room now as I sit in the convertary more.😁

I did the same to our conservatory three years ago, I also did one wall of it at the same time as it was frosted glass, it's made such a difference being able to use it nearly all year round.

I used TLX silver

from here

http://www.tlxinsulation.co.uk/tlx-silver/tlx-silver.aspx TLX Silverhttp://www.tlxinsulation.co.uk/tlx-silver/tlx-silver.aspx <

Might make some fabric drapes to hang between the joists as a prototype.

If your going to do something as far from the original idea as that you might as well use black bin bags.....

#insertpeterkaysketch......*

*Stupid linking won't work for me on my phone

Today is the hottest day of the year so far. I've been in the conservatory and I'm happy to say it's no longer warm enough to melt candles.

It was warm but with the windows open I could happily sit in there. It's made a massive difference which is handy as my old dinning room has now been converted into a play room and we now have a table and chairs in the conservatory.

Glad it worked out, we have been in ours all summer and winter. Best £250 I have spent

Saw this thread sometime ago and finally got round to getting a quote. Conservatory is smaller than the OPs, no angled sections to worry about and skimmed plaster finish. £5k!!!!!
Some of the people above could make some serious money😁

@damascus How has the conversion held up during the winter and now some warmth is coming back? Not too cold in the winter and no condensation or damp issues? still not hot enough to melt a candle on a sunny day?

@oikeith

It currently looks like a kids nursery. We pretty much live in there during the day at the moment as mini D is 2 and plays outside a lot.

Its holding up well. Warms up quickly in a morning, 5 minutes with the electric radiator warms it, then the house keeps it warm.

When the sun comes out its cold enough to sit in with the windows open. It's a pleasant place to spend time. I couldn't have done that before.

Best thing I ever did, it's made it part of the home. It doesn't seem to have stopped a lot of light either.

As we are locked in during the covid 19 it's made looking after the dusty lid a lot easier.

We used it in January for his birthday party. Again, electric heater to warm it up then the house keeps it at temperature. The hot air seems to get trapped in the roof space and not lose a lot of heat.

Highly recommended. Give it a go yourself.

@ian-r £5000 is crazy.

It took 3 days to do it including plastering. A mate helped with lifting etc the first two days, a further day to paint it on my own. Probably £300 in materials in the end. So that's a lot of labour charges.

That's about £500 a day each!

My neighbour who did it first and paid for it. (I stole all their ideas) paid about £1800 I think.

Get some more quotes. I think if you've not done one before it would take you a while so they are probably adding on just in case.

If you do it, make sure you put enough battens on to support the plaster board. The professionals that did my neighbours used one contractor for wood work and plaster board and one for skimming. When the plasterer skimmed it the whole thing sagged and had to be re done. That saved me from making that mistake myself.

@damascus
Yep I thought it was ridiculous. The firm that replaced the roof glass with insulated panel quoted over £11k!!!!!
Done it myself now. Was going to use internal upvc cladding. Now looking at lining with curtain material to soften the noise in there a bit.
Feels a lot better at keeping the temperature down in the sun.

I did ours last year - a different technique but far less weight.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/wQxZR3JxZWqkxM9n7

As above, we were quoted £13k to convert and were told that it would conform to building regs, but they wouldn't arrange for removal of the patio doors into the house (large rodent detected nasally). For anyone who's wondering - there is no roof system possible that can allow you to turn your conservatory into an extension and let you get away with the conservatory rules.

Decided to try this and see how it worked. Cost all in was just under £2k.
Over winter it has been usable, although still takes some energy to keep fully warm.
The big losses are the glass (obviously), the poor fitting french doors and the uninsulated floor.
We're contemplating ripping out the tiles and laying insulation followed by laminate.

We retained the patio door but at xmas we removed the leaves for the day to open up the area for a family dinner.

We've not seen the hottest weather yet with it, but thermal gain on the hottest days has been far less than previously.

We moved in 4 years ago

conservatory is huge, was a great room, but bitterly cold in winter, repaired a lot of the woodwork, but polycarbonate roof was shot, repaired it before xmas with bitchumen tape but was leaking again in Feb
Finally bit the bullet & got it replaced , its 12m by 3m, quotes were from £7-13k! in the end got a deal for £4.5k for tapco fake tiles only,

used 50mm celotex, had an investigate & thermal properties much better than the multilayer blankets (tho by my shonky calcs would need 75mm with 75mm cavity above to meet regs?)

Was waiting for lockdown & ordered the plasterboards just b4 lockdown, done the one low wall and managed 4 plasterboards of the ceiling, but with homeschooling & wfh, itd be easier if I was in work & could just take some time off!
(tho I hvae dug the pond out you can see in the pic up there, just waiting for some pond plants to arrive)

still have to board the back wall too & going to try skimming myself (but failing that I do know a good plasterer)

weve definately lost light into the back of the house, but its not so bad, planning some ikea LED panels and some Govee led coulur strips
& the conservatory is so much more usable already

The LED strip light around the perimeter covers 95% of our lighting needs in ours and we’ve cut out 1/3 of the window space as well.