orangery - improve insulation

woodmeister123

We have had one of the orangery structures build under conservatory regulations (75% glass roof), a while ago, we are looking at options for making it a bit warmer, we should have built an extension, but too late now. It has dwarf walls and windows on 3 sides with bricks to the roof in the corners.

It was well built by a local company, has 1m foundations, insulated cavity wall and a very solid timber roof for the non glazed part.

One option is to replace the glass part of the roof with an insulated roof, which seems to be allowed now if you get building regs approval for the roof.

My real question though is is it likely to be possible to effectively convert it to an extension and get it through building regs without knocking down and rebuilding everything including foundations? I would imagine this would be brick up one of the walls and replace the roof.

I've seen this questions answered many times for conservatories (knock it down), but wondering if the answer is any different for structures that are a bit more solid to begin with.

knightstyle

You are losing a lot of heat through the ceiling, Can you insulate it, I did this for DD, screwed wooden battens onto the existing structure fibreglass in the gaps and screwed cheap plastic panels, with sparkly bits in, to finish it.

Fire_Fox

Professionally fitted window treatments can apparently make a huge difference: for example cellular/ honeycomb blinds, floor-to-ceiling, thermal lined curtains on a close fitting track.

longwalks1

A colleague had the glass roof on his conservatory/orangery (be careful saying the 'O' word on here, some will shoot you down for it ) covered with insulation and a tile effect covering and made good on the inside too and said it made a huge difference

Aylesbury_Duck

I love a good orangery. What varieties are you growing in it? Will they thrive in reduced light if you insulate the roof?

Davesnave

britishboy wrote: »

(be careful saying the 'O' word on here, some will shoot you down for it )

I think you misunderstand. People here make fun of the word because it's a term invented by the conservatory industry to spin their products to a public who, understandably, now distrust them and their original offerings.

It's exactly the sort of misnomer people with a spivvy image would come up with.

This is not to say that people cannot get a decent conservatory built, but people like me have found the odds are against it. Even though we built the foundations, walls and floors in ours, we needed a Mexican stand-off lasting months, till the conservatory company agreed to re-fit the roof to the manufacturer's guidelines. i.e the way they should have done it in the first place.

This is a company in business with the same directors for 42 years. Just imagine how much worse fly-by-nights could be!

Davesnave

knightstyle wrote: »

You are losing a lot of heat through the ceiling, Can you insulate it, I did this for DD, screwed wooden battens onto the existing structure fibreglass in the gaps and screwed cheap plastic panels, with sparkly bits in, to finish it.

The whole point of a conservatory from my POV is that one doesn't lose precious light, especially in the winter months.

We have friends who converted their conservatory to a solid-roofed garden room, which is very nice, but it effectively messed-up the rest of their living area, making it feel gloomy and uninviting.

I don't doubt that heat loss is higher through a double glazed roof, but if the rest of the structure is conventionally insulated, I wonder how bad this really is. So far this winter, I've been heating the whole living area (kitchen/diner, hallway, office, utility etc) via a woodburner in the living room and often using the conservatory as a heat sink because it's too darn hot!

Conversely, on bright days, like yesterday, I've allowed the stove to die and the conservatory has provided all the heat needed from, say, 10am till around 5pm.

Just to add that it's a 5kW wood burner, our wood is 'free' and for those who don't know, slumbering a wood burner isn't good, so we always have 2.5+ kW of heat to dissipateif it's alight.

Fire_Fox

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

I love a good orangery. What varieties are you growing in it? Will they thrive in reduced light if you insulate the roof?

Ooooh :j my kitchen-living area only has a dwarf wall, the entire top two thirds/ three quarters of the wall is window.

If I put my disappointingly small faux Monstera plant and freakishly large faux bamboo plant on the windowsill is that a greenhouse or a conservatory? :think:

woodmeister123

Yes I am aware of the connotations of the "o" word, should have put it in quotes for the original post.

Insulating at least some of the roof is probably the thing to do I suspect. There definitely is a trade off with light as the room behind is pretty gloomy anyway, might play around temporarily covering up all or some of the roof and see what difference it makes to the light inside.

Interestingly the actual walls are better spec than the house as it has un-insulated cavity, maybe I should do this first!

But if you do one of the lightweight tiled roofs you technically need building regs for the roof right? are they likely to grant it for one of these things?

Davesnave

We 'played around' with a temporary covering by erecting scaffolding when we refurbished the roof on our bungalow. This led us to go for a conservatory rather than a conventional extension.

We also knew it would be very hot in summer, but for lifestyle reasons, that wasn't much of an issue for us.

In deciding whether a structure meets BR, a building control officer would look at all aspects of ther insulation. This would include the floor. We have 100mm of Celotex under ours.

I believe they might allow some trade off if other aspects of the house were upgraded. e.g. existing walls, but that's something I've heard of, not experienced first hand.

Would you be able to prove that the foundations etc are compliant? We have never bothered about the fact that our room (27m2) is a conservatory. The building inspector has never so much as glanced at it . I suspect he knows we have sailed very close to the wind with the size. With the attached porch, it's fractionally over the magic 30m2!

woodmeister123

We know how deep the foundations are (1m), and could get further details from the original builders. From what I've read this could be ok, unless building control want more in our area for a specific reason. Walls are 300mm insulated cavity so up to spec I think.

Not sure what is in the floor, I can probably find out, I guess it might be possible to redo this at a push.

There is plenty of scope for upgrade in the rest of the house, wall is uninsulated, loft insulation is only up to rafters, and all the other double glazing is old.

Sounds like I definitely need to do a light test though to see if any light reduction in the rest of the downstairs makes things unpleasant.