Don't know what to do with old conservatory

Oren

Our house has an old lean-to conservatory that pre-dates building regs. It's in poor condition. We only use it for storage but there's nothing of any value stored there.
It has a polycarbonate roof which is now beginning to leak, recently discovered because of heavy rain fall - the joins in the polycarbonate sheets have flashband stuck over them, and there is lead flashing to the brickwork of the house. The timber frames supporting the windows are pretty rotten, but holding up. It's accessed by internal French doors. It leads to a WC which is part of the main house structure. It has thermoplastic asbestos floor tiles throughout - these also go into the WC. 

The original plan when we moved into the house 2 years ago was to either refurbish or replace the conservatory, however, unforeseen circumstances plus more urgent repairs to the house depleted our funds, and so it had to wait. 

Within the past couple of months we have had to pay out for new soffits and fascias plus roof repair to the main house, plus car repairs, so we are really on a low budget. If I'm honest, we'd need a loan to undertake any repairs/replacement running into the thousands. 

However, now with the conservatory roof leaking, I need to address what to do with it. 

Option 1 - get roof replaced - but is this really worth the expense for a rotten old conservatory? 
Option 2 - Get someone to have a look at the roof and see if they can repair any leaks, replace flashing etc if needed, a temporary solution while we try to accrue more savings. 
Option 3 - get whole conservatory demolished - but need to consider the cost of either bricking up where the current internal French doors are or getting external doors, and also what happens to the WC, this would then be outside exposed to the elements and therefore will need an external door. Asbestos floor tiles to consider also. I don't even know how much this is likely to cost.

Any thoughts / what would you do? 

tacpot12

The position if the WC is odd. I would start with deciding what to do about the WC. If you like accessing it via the conservatory, a new conservatory would be the way to go. If you don't like accessing via the conservatory, figure out where you want the access to be and get a quote to create that access and brick up the existing access. Then decide if you want (or can afford ) to have a new conservatory or whether you just need to replace the French windows. Sliding patio doors are likely to be the cheapest option - if you are lucky, the opening might be a standard size that means you can buy them ready made, if not, it will be a custom job, it won't be too expensive unless you want a very high specification - which might be worthwhile if the window will face north and you are in the north of the UK. 

AskAsk

you could just cover the roof with a tarpauline until you have enough money to get a new conservatory.

SaverRate

Definitely do not do option 1 as its a waste of money if the conservatory is rotten. See if you can cover the roof as per AskAsk 's post. Option 3 depends on if you want/need a new conservatory and what you want to do with the WC. If you are just using the conservatory for storage is there any point putting a new one in? Can the WC be reconfigured so access is via the main house? 

Oren

Thanks all for replies!
I've attached a floor plan, you can see how the WC is positioned and the current access. The blue square is my washer dryer, the plumbing of which goes through the wall and uses the drainage of the WC. (under the sink is the dishwasher so don't want to be moving the washer dryer there).

Petriix

Personally I would be considering opening it all out and creating a proper extension. If you don't have the budget for that then you should at least stop the leaks for now with some sealant. Ripping it down without replacing will be a pain with the current doors and WC.

If you can leave the floor tiles undisturbed then do so. You can simply add flooring over them if you don't like the style.

Barny1979

If you demolish it, does the conservatory have a power supply that would need capping off? I know I have an old lean-to conservatory I want to demolish, but presume I need to sort out the internal plug socket, that would result in being on the outside wall.

Davesnave

We inherited a large wooden conservatory with a glass roof that leaked. Rather than do the things suggested here, we fixed polytunnel plastic under the leaky roof with battens and attached guttering inside to catch the water which was then piped into a deep bed, but could equally have gone outside.

It was like that for 5 years until we were ready to demolish and replace. It stayed dry inside, which was handy, especially when we were refurbishing the rest of the house.

Even if you can't do what we did due to the different roof structure, I'd not demolish until you are ready to make proper lasting changes. I would consider putting external grade doors in place though; they should be there regardless of the state of the conservatory.

Soot2006

Davesnave said:

We inherited a large wooden conservatory with a glass roof that leaked. Rather than do the things suggested here, we fixed polytunnel plastic under the leaky roof with battens and attached guttering inside to catch the water which was then piped into a deep bed, but could equally have gone outside.

I've just done this as well, after also doing some patch-fixing of the roof as there were only some ingress points.

If it lasts 5 years I'll be super chuffed. It's given us the space to the use the conservatory for the winter without big investment and figure out what we really want at a later date. 

Jeepers_Creepers

Hi Oren.

What are the connie walls made of - PVC with DG windows? Full height or dwarf wall? Is it essentially 'sound' enough but just a bit tatty and with a leaking roof? Are you up for some DIY, even some temp repairs? 

If it's actually a basically solid construction and usable with a little attention, and since money's too tight to mention, I'd be looking at stopping the leaks to get me through winter and then DIY replacing the roof come Summer. It looks like a smallish connie, and with a flat-sloping roof which should be easy to update, adding insulation on the inside.

At its simplest, you could just cover the existing ali-frame/poly sheet roof with, say, 12mm Sterling board, Stixalling it to the frame tops and adding a number of self-taping screws for good measure. Then cover this with the finish of your choice, such as decorative bitumen tiles simply glued down. Protect the roof sides with a plastic trim, and leave the small gap between this new sheet and the poly panels open at the lower end to allow air to still circulate up there. Flash the roof to the house.

Inside, again Stixall/screw 25mm rigid insulation to the frame undersides, and then cover with whatever finish you want - even lining paper and emulsion paint will give an acceptable finish. If you fit trims over the sheet joints to hide them, you could even paint direct to the ali foil layer - emulsion or even masonry paint. It'll look just like a normal ceiling.

Or, remove the whole roof and replace ali joists with timber ones and go from there. 

Watertight and a huge improvement in insulation. Then look at what you can do to the PVC frame to make it more homely inside - overpaint in a nice old sage green colour, or even a dark grey - if the white looks cheap, stark and cold.

Oren

Thank you all for your kind replies. 

@Petriix I've thought about getting it turned into a proper extension before, however, this would require remortgaging/borrowing against the house or a large loan, so I have some research to do.

@Barny1979 The power supply runs off a spur.

@Davesnave Thank you, I think keeping it dry inside is the main aim for now until we can figure out what we want to do in the long term, if I can make it last another 5 years that'd be great. External doors are on the "get sorted soon" list, whatever I decide to do with the conservatory they will need to be there. It was built before external door access became a building regulation thing. 

@Jeepers_Creepers Thank you for this. I am not adverse to a bit of DIY when I can get the time off work! And have wondered to what extent we can do things ourselves. I will attach pics of how the conservatory looks so you can see the structure. It has blockwork plinth walls, then timber framed (rotting) with single glazed windows, and a double glazed sliding door to the garden. The polycarbonate sheet roof is boarded to the underside, you can see these white boards in the pic, there's an old laundry dryer hanging from the ceiling. Before a couple of recent leaks sprouted it was surprisingly a pretty dry room with very little damp. These pics were taken 2 years ago before we moved in, we cleaned it up inside (was full of condensation damp from where the previous owner used to dry clothes in there).