Conservatory - your thoughts please

Errata

I'm considering having a small conservatory, probably 2.5 x 2.5. What are your thoughts on a 3kw oil filled radiator for heating in the cooler months and a portable Argos type air conditioner for the summer months. The aspect is WSW.

olias

open doors/windows in summer, add spur to existing central heating system for winter - a bit of pipework and a rad aint going to cost you much

olias

Mr_Warren_2

.......If it's worth doing, it;s worth doing properly. Either electric underfloor heating or as olias says, a spur from the central heating.

Chippy_Minton_2

Mr_Warren wrote: »

.......If it's worth doing, it;s worth doing properly. Either electric underfloor heating

No way avoid this option at ALL costs.

Under floor heating yes, but from you central heating, makes the floor one big rad.

Glass roof too, not plastic.

However all said is it really worth having one that size?

Canucklehead

Errata wrote: »

I'm considering having a small conservatory, probably 2.5 x 2.5. What are your thoughts on a 3kw oil filled radiator for heating in the cooler months and a portable Argos type air conditioner for the summer months. The aspect is WSW.

Good morning: This subject became quite 'heated' (for some, not all;)) in March.

HTH

Canucklehead

Errata

Thanks everyone, the size is the one I want and the both the underfloor heating or extending the central heating won't be possible.
So to my original question - what are people's thoughts on a 3kw oil filled heater and a portable aircon unit? Will they heat it and cool it adequately?
Canucklehead, many thanks for the link.

Mummy_Jo

Hi

We have a 22ft long P Conservatory - Its like a largish conservatory with a corridor on it and it spans the whole length of the house. We have a 3kw oil filled radiator and it is MORE than enough. In the winter we put it on a timer (if we know we want to use the room) and we NEVER EVER have it on maximum. My guess is that you could actually get away with a smaller one say 1.5kw because we wish we had bought a 2kw one - they are more compact.

With ref to the air con unit we also have one of these but let me tell you a little story before you make up your mind...

Our conservatory was fitted by the previous owners. It has a bronze roof. It is a south facing aspect so in summer it was HIDEOUS - ABSOLUTELY HIDEOUS!!!! Just walking through it to get to the garage (where the freezer is stored and you cooked). We decided to pay £3000.00 and have Hillarys install some roof blinds. They came installed them and yes it made a difference BUT in doing so they drilled 18 little holes in the wrong place and the roof leaked!:eek: To cut a long story short - only option was to replace the entire roof. The companies that we had to quote for the job only install roofs that are at least opaque and at least 35mm thick ( I think I have remembered that correctly). Anyway with this new white roof - we can use it most of the year without the need for heating or cooling as it retains the heat in the cooler months and blocks the sun in the summer months. We also had a roof window installed which helps enormously in the summer. We haven't had the oil filled rad on since beg of March.

When we had the blinds we used the air con unit - only problem is length of hose - you need to have the hose outside of a window and quite often they are just to short to reach - If this is a serious option consider having bottom opening windows instead of top ones to let the hose out. We have to stand our unit on a table so the hose can reach out of the window. We haven't used the air con unit with the new roof as we haven't needed to - But we haven't had good summers in recent years. I live in the South West so we do get a fair bit of warm weather (compared to my parents in Co. Durham).

My advice is:

Get a decent roof with a little window to allow the heat to escape in the summer (ours cost £100 extra but was worth it). It is worth paying extra for the roof.
Only buy the air con if you feel like you need it - you may get by without it
An oil filled radiator will be enough for the winter. If you know someone with one try and borrow it to see how much heat actually comes out of it. I could heat my whole house with ours!
Put up some sort of shade at the windows. We find that during the summer we need somewhere to store the oil filled rad and during the winter we need somewhere to store the air con unit as they are bulky. Do you have space for these?

If you want to ask any more questions please feel free

Hope you get sorted

Jo

amtrakuk

olias wrote: »

open doors/windows in summer, add spur to existing central heating system for winter - a bit of pipework and a rad aint going to cost you much

olias

Remember speaking to my father about this. Get a quote but I think you'll find it will cost alot more then you think to put a spur onto you're heating system. His quote was just shy of £350 to put a 3,500 BTU radiator in the conservatory and plumb it into the exsisting system. He was warned a cold conservatory will suck alot of the heat out of the heating system.

If you go for that it might be worth checking the capacity of the heating system else all the heat in central heating system would be sucked out by the conservatory radiator leaving little heat for the others. Also thinking on it, your boiler will be flashing on more to keep up with the demand. Seems a bit of a waste if your not using it?

What my father did was trying out a convector heater as you can turn it on just when you want to use the conservatory and turn it off when you dont. A £30, 2Kw convector heater will produce about 7,000 BTU and you wont need to do have any plumbing work done.