Any conservatory specialists out there?

Pete69_2

I'm in the process of the final specifications on my conservatory. The room will be basically an open extension of the living room and extend across the back of the house. Heating efficiency is high on the agenda as it needs to be usable all year round - as such I have chosen Pilkington Activ Blue 'K' glass for the roof.
Options for the windows are as follows and this is where I need some guidance. (The room will be south west facing).
Firstly - I have been advised to go with Planitherm Ultra N (with Argon) at a fairly significant extra cost - is there a justifiable benefit to this product over standard glazing? What extra should I expect to pay for Ultra N?

Secondly - Should I be considering a combined solar control and insulating product for the side windows, like Planitherm 4S (the roof is Activ Blue so will offer some solar control)?
Any guidance greatly appreaciated (keeping the heat in is a higher priority than keeping the sun at bay for what little we see!)

BoxerfanUK

I would advise against having an open extension of your living room no matter what type of glass you fit to your conservatory. It's easy to get 'hung up' over these manufacturers claims about how thermally efficient their glass is, but in the real world a conservatory is NEVER going to be anywhere near as thermally efficient as the rest of the house. Ours has K glass and as much insulation as we could at the time as well as C/heating rad but when its really cold at least we can shut the radiator off and close the patio doors to it so the rest of the house stays warm. The danger with an open conserv' is that you will have to crank up the heating stat just to keep the rest of the house comfortable because all the colder air from your conserv' will be flowing into the main house if its all open.

SatanicHare

agree with previous post

996ducati

I work in the commercial glass sector and tend to agree with the above.

Pilk Artic blue is a high performance glass and the U values will be far lower than say polycarbonate roof.

Saint Gobain Planitherm is a high performing Low E glass and yes the Argon is worth having for the small extra investment.

If you are set on having this arrangement it might be worth going the whole hog and asking for a price to include warm edge spacer bars on the units(if they arent already included)

Regards

plumb1_2

Pete69 wrote: »

The room will be basically an open extension of the living room and extend across the back of the house. QUOTE]

I think you will need planning consent for it?

ptuckwell

If you want the to use the conservatory all year round i would suggest you do some research on pilkingtons website, as it give you information about argon filled glass units and thermal spacer bars in the units. also you need to ask the question about what for of insulation the glazing bars have themselves, timber is best but the is a new system out by ultraframe that has good thermal properties

you could look at the new 35mm seven wall polycarbonate that has a u-value of 1.2 which is very good.