What to do with my conservatory?

boo80

We bought our 1st house :T 2 months ago and it came with a 3m x 4m conservatory with a polycarbonate roof, one side is the back wall of our house, the other 3 walls are about 85cm high, then 2 of them have uPVC and double glazed windows and a uPVC, double glazed double door, the last half wall is made of upvc.

We've never had a conservatory before so I was rather nieve about how cold it would get in there so we are using the room as a playroom/computer room, after reading many posts on here I can see that the general opinion is that they are not designed to be habital rooms, but we have it now and we need the space so we will be using it!

We can spend up to about £1000 on the room, does anyone have any ideas about how to best spend the money? We have very cold tiles on the floor atm so I'd like to put some nicer flooring in, but it will be used by 2 small children so it needs to clean easily. We do have underfloor heating, but I understand that we won't be able to use this once we put whatever flooring on top of the tiles? The heating isn't very effective anyway so I'm not worried about that. We don't have any other heating system in the room and I don't have any idea about the best thing for the job. We also don't have any kind of curtains/blinds but I'm not sure if we could put anything in because of the uPVC?

Any ideas gratefully recieved!! Sorry about the essay! Boo.x

rushdenruss

Hi

We have a cold conservatory too, but it can be heated up quite quickly with an unusual appraoch that is to fit an air conditioningunit which runs seperate to your central heating.

These units heat as well as cool and are very efficient as they also have climate control to stop heatign when desired heat is reached.

Prices start from about £1k so not cheap but neither is a room you cannot use.

Russell Jones

diable

Not much help but I knocked mine down and built a proper extension.

boo80

diable wrote: »

Not much help but I knocked mine down and built a proper extension.

Lol, how much did that cost??

boo80

rushdenruss wrote: »

Hi

We have a cold conservatory too, but it can be heated up quite quickly with an unusual appraoch that is to fit an air conditioningunit which runs seperate to your central heating.

These units heat as well as cool and are very efficient as they also have climate control to stop heatign when desired heat is reached.

Prices start from about £1k so not cheap but neither is a room you cannot use.

Russell Jones

Thanks Russell, but thats way more than we have atm. Maybe something to look into in the future. Is it economical to run?

becs

We have wooden flooring in ours with 2 x radiators but it is 6m x 3m. If we have the doors shut from the house it is on the chilly side but the drift from the house with the doors open and the 2 x rads make it quite warm in there. We also have a glass roof on ours so polycarb should be warmer anyway. I would recommend wood though as great for mopping up spills etc and no stains to worry about and much warmer on the feet than tiles. We do also have a couple of rugs in there.

diable

boo80 wrote: »

Lol, how much did that cost??

At the time about 7k uncles and mates helped ;p

Starrystarrynight

We had our conservatory built in February this year. We've bought a ceramic tower fan heater and it works a treat. The conservatory is 4 x 4m and we have a laminate floor which is really easy to clean.
Not sure what effect the heater will have on our electric bill, but having more usable space in the house is more important to us.

roswell

your main problem will be heat loss from the roof, if you know someone thats handy with a sowing machine get some thick curtains and stitch in a seam so you can hang them along the roof, Run 2 curtain poles one along the top edge one along the bottom and fit the curtains. then get a radiator plumbed in or a oil filled electric radiator may do the job.

Finefoot

i have wood effect lino in mine. not so cold, and a breeze to keep clean.

sunshinetours

A couple of decent sized oil filled radiators may be useful as short term option for heating. the underfloor should take the chill off the tiles so I wouldn't replace.
Get some material and knock up some "curtains" or blinds maybe with some isnulation material incorporated for ceiling although you will lose light. Aside from that I would save your £1k and put it towards an extension as you will never insulate it enough to match a habitable room when the outside temps are like they are currently

AS soon as we have money to be able, we will knock ours down and build a proper brick extension with roof lights and plenty of windows but a solid insulated roof which is where the biggest difference lies