heating a conservatory

hopeful21

We have just built a 3.5 x 4.0 metre orangery. It has about 30% brick work which is insulated. The concrete floor is also insulated.The windows are Aergon filled.It has Untraframe roof with Pilkington Active Blue glass.
We are intending to remove the patio door to the house so it will be all open. It will not be used all the time but want to maintain an ambient heat that we can turn up when we are using it.
We have looked at the option of adding a 10000btu radiator from the Central heating but have been advised as our pipework is small bore they can't run the radiator from an adjoining one but it will have to be run from the tank upstairs with a lot of upheaval and we are not sure the boiler has the capacity to support it.
We are also looking at electric underfloor heating but are not sure this will give us enough heat. We are having laminate floor. We are also not sure how much it will cost to run. We know it will be more than gas heating but it does not have to be on all the time and having it open,heat from the house should flow in there. Or any other ideas to look at?

Cardew

Consider a small 'stand alone' air to air' Air Source Heat Pump(ASHP) which will also have the advantage of providing air conditioning in the summer.

sk240

Parhaps this might suit your needs
http://www.vyair.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=125

Cardew

sk240 wrote: »

Parhaps this might suit your needs
http://www.vyair.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=125

Units of a similar type to these are widely used in the USA on trailer homes and motel rooms.

Gloomendoom

My parents have an air source heat pump in their conservatory. It's quite noisy in operation and the colder it is outside, the less heat it puts out.

They keep their conservatory sealed off from the rest of the house in winter and only heat it when they need the extra room.

ivory55

Hi, I think most people under estimate how much it costs to heat a conservatory. We have under floor heating run by the gas boiler on a separate circuit to the house, plus a rad and 21c is the best we get. Problem we have is it gets cold at night and the room stat cuts in at 9c so the boiler is often firing up in the night. Keep asking our local electrician if he can come round and put an on off switch on it , he has not come round yet . So be warned it takes a lot of energy to keep them warm.

sk240

ivory55 wrote: »

Hi, I think most people under estimate how much it costs to heat a conservatory. We have under floor heating run by the gas boiler on a separate circuit to the house, plus a rad and 21c is the best we get. Problem we have is it gets cold at night and the room stat cuts in at 9c so the boiler is often firing up in the night. Keep asking our local electrician if he can come round and put an on off switch on it , he has not come round yet . So be warned it takes a lot of energy to keep them warm.

They sure do loose a lot of heat, the cheaper consevatorys you may as well just stick the heater outside :-)
The more expensive ones are a lot better, but still never going to be as good as a normal building

clare10a

Hi, I have been doing a lot of research on conservatories recently as ours is so cold during the winter (even though we had a thick glass roof added last year) There is a radiator which runs out there but you have the problem at night that the temperature drops dramatically. I did see that a couple of people have had wood burners fitted and they are quite effective.

As for my small lean to conservatory, I'm considering having double pleated roof blinds.

oldandhappy

We had roof blinds on our North facing conservatory which at the time had polycarbonate roof not glass... always had a rad which worked well and the room was fully furnished... when the temp dropped quickly the condensation at times was like rain running off the blinds...you had to see it to believe it.
Now we have it covered with wooded beams covered in Atlanta board then felted and inside we insulated 1st then plasterboard and then had a plasterer skim it. Worth every penny.

ivory55

I agree with the condensation we have the same problem and ours is a glass roof and glass on 2 sides , insulated floor and walls. If we had a tickle on the lottery or something we would take it down or have a tiled roof with insulation put on our conservatory. We do not use it either as it's to hot in the summer , to cold in the winter, use it twice a year at Xmas no other time.