Fitting a log burner in a uPVC conservatory

houghw

Dear All,

I'm sure that this subject will have been covered before but I thought I would ask again in case things have changed...

A little over a year ago my wife and I purchased a house. The house we bought has a conservatory fitted...

Last winter we stopped using the conservatory for a couple of months when the weather was too cold as it was very difficult to keep the room up to a decent temperature.

Over the summer I took a long hard look at the electrics in the conservatory and aside from discovering a live cable that had been cut off just outside the door, I also discovered that the conservatory had underfloor heating fitted... So far so good...

When the weather started to turn cold again, I duly switched on the heating so that we could continue to use the conservatory throughout the winter. To my horror I discovered, thanks to an energy monitor my supplier had just sent me, that the heating ran at 2-3 kW almost constantly!

Having made this alarming discovery, I promptly switched off the underfloor heating and shut the doors between the conservatory and the house for another winter!

Whilst wondering around the ideal home show a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I started discussing our dilemma and wondered if it would be possible to get a wood burner fitted inside the conservatory to provide a bit of heat when we want to use the extra room? As we do not need to use the room every day, we thought this would be a reasonable way to heat this area when we do need to use it.

Most of the conversations I have found on the subject seem to be from people who use their conservatories often, whereas we only really want to use it occasionally, normally at weekends, so it is not worth fitting central heating in there.

Does anyone have any hints, ideas or comments about this subject?

Thank you for your time.

suisidevw

I'd suggest if you only use the room occasionnaly the installation of a woodburner would be an expensive option. Including fitting you'd probably be looking at approx £3k.

muckybutt

As svw comment, just for occasional use you would be paying a hell of a price just for the luxury of having a stove in there.

It is easily do-able and I have many customers that have had them fitted in conservatories be them upvc or wooden, but as said they come at a price.

Have you thought about an lpg heater in there ?

[Deleted User]

My parents have a huge radiator off the GCH in their sun room. Sure it takes the edge off but still to cold to spend much time in there during there in winter. So that get's me thinking, your going to need one big stove, probably steel so it heats up quicker, to stand any chance of making it livable. That will be expensive. Perhaps stick with what you have...

On a side note one of my neighbors a couple of miles away has a massive traditional conservatory on the opposite side of the house to the stable block and in they have a huge stove. Looks stunning but whether it gets warm is another matter.

Cardew

A good heating solution for a conservatory is a single Air to Air heat pump, which has the added advantage of providing air conditioning in the summer.

You might have seen these in motel type rooms abroad - particularly the USA.

This link gives the principle:

http://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/homeowner/heat-pumps/air-to-air-heat-pump

You would need to consider the noise aspects if you have neighbours close.

Gloomendoom

Somebody suggested fitting stove in the conservatory I am planning. However, when I looked into it, building regs required the flue to be taller than the ridge of the main house. I'm not keen on the back of a Chinese takaway look, so the idea is a non-starter.

[Deleted User]

Gloomendoom wrote: »

I'm not keen on the back of a Chinese takaway look, so the idea is a non-starter.

Choked on my morning coffee there :rotfl:

suki1964

Gloomendoom wrote: »

Somebody suggested fitting stove in the conservatory I am planning. However, when I looked into it, building regs required the flue to be taller than the ridge of the main house. I'm not keen on the back of a Chinese takaway look, so the idea is a non-starter.

People asked us if we had opened a chippy lol

Thing is it tones down in a year or three. And where we live is very rural and most people have a flue running the outside of their houses be it for stoves or boilers that no one really notices. The one thing we had to ensure was it was well and truly tethered to the roof as we suffer very high winds here

houghw

Wow,

Thanks for the advice and comments...

I guess my initial idea of a wood burner was as much to do with aesthetics as anything else (not to mention the idea of being a man and staring a fire on a regular basis...) We both liked the idea of having a decent fire to sit and gaze at and a bit of foraging could cut our fuel bill down for this appliance considerably...

I initially rejected the idea of a LPG heater as my main memory of these is the old fashioned boxy heaters that stank when you first switched them on and started to fall apart after about a year. Having looked on-line, you can get so quite nice ones now that'll give us the type of effect we are after so I may suggest that to her indoors tonight..

Wayne