House gets very cold (<13degrees) and retains no heat

Doozergirl

Bendy_House said:

That roof does, at least, look like double-glazed glass units, so not as bad as polycarb twinwall!

A DIY method of largely sorting that roof would cost very little - 2" rigid insulation board bonded to 3/4rs of the panels, leaving perhaps only 2 exposed to allow light and some solar gain for most of the year.

Building regs is 150mm of insulation.  It would be like a sticking plaster.  The conservatory itself doesn't
look very new, I bet the windows aren't very thermally efficient either.  It must be like a sieve.  

I'm trying to work out how the OP ended up buying this without professional advice. 

Bendy_House

ft23 said:

Bendy_House said:

That roof does, at least, look like double-glazed glass units, so not as bad as polycarb twinwall!

A DIY method of largely sorting that roof would cost very little - 2" rigid insulation board bonded to 3/4rs of the panels, leaving perhaps only 2 exposed to allow light and some solar gain for most of the year.

Hi - thanks for this. Yes its a double glazed roof and the dwarf walls of the kitchen are actually cavity wall (filled) so I understand, the issue is too much glass roof. Would consider trying to DIY it. Do you have any advice/guides on how to do this - how do the rigid insulation boards attach, and do you then cover them? Thanks

You really don't want to ask me this...

Personally, I would 'bodge' it - literally adhere 2", or perhaps stretch to 3", rigid insulation board to either the joists or even to the glass itself - the former would leave a small gap between it and the glazing, which I don't think would serve any purpose, but also cause no harm. The latter would require a thinner amount of insulation to fit over the joists, so that the overall insulation surface level is the same. The required 'skylight' sections could be either full-length glazing sections as they currently are, but better I think would be ~2m long skylights - say 3 or 4 on the whole ceiling - which would just require the insulation to be cut accordingly. The exposed edges of the insulation would need finishing - plenty suitable trims out there - and the whole visible surface would need lining. I guess this could be lightweight cladding, or very simply a good thick lining paper, and then painted.

As I said - 'bodge'. But it would/should work.

To do this would cost just a few £undred. To do that ceiling 'properly' will cost £ks.

danrv

Maybe a suspended ceiling would work with insulation roll added above.

Bendy_House

It doesn't look that high as it is.

A 2" layer of Celotex will get that ceiling to within 80% of the current insulation regs which demand stupid-inches.

NB: the 80% figure quoted is effectively meaningless, but is probably not far off. And, I have absolutely nothing against current insulation regs.

(But the cost of retrospectively conforming with it is usually not cost-effective).

Slinky

Bendy_House said:

ft23 said:

Bendy_House said:

That roof does, at least, look like double-glazed glass units, so not as bad as polycarb twinwall!

A DIY method of largely sorting that roof would cost very little - 2" rigid insulation board bonded to 3/4rs of the panels, leaving perhaps only 2 exposed to allow light and some solar gain for most of the year.

Hi - thanks for this. Yes its a double glazed roof and the dwarf walls of the kitchen are actually cavity wall (filled) so I understand, the issue is too much glass roof. Would consider trying to DIY it. Do you have any advice/guides on how to do this - how do the rigid insulation boards attach, and do you then cover them? Thanks

You really don't want to ask me this...

Personally, I would 'bodge' it - literally adhere 2", or perhaps stretch to 3", rigid insulation board to either the joists or even to the glass itself - the former would leave a small gap between it and the glazing, which I don't think would serve any purpose, but also cause no harm. The latter would require a thinner amount of insulation to fit over the joists, so that the overall insulation surface level is the same. The required 'skylight' sections could be either full-length glazing sections as they currently are, but better I think would be ~2m long skylights - say 3 or 4 on the whole ceiling - which would just require the insulation to be cut accordingly. The exposed edges of the insulation would need finishing - plenty suitable trims out there - and the whole visible surface would need lining. I guess this could be lightweight cladding, or very simply a good thick lining paper, and then painted.

As I said - 'bodge'. But it would/should work.

To do this would cost just a few £undred. To do that ceiling 'properly' will cost £ks.

Bet that would look 'interesting' when viewed from the upstairs windows........

Bendy_House

Just paint the outer glass surface too...

Doozergirl

Bendy_House said:

Just paint the outer glass surface too...

Hmm.  I'm more for moving the kitchen back into the house or just finding a way to put doors on by moving some of it.  

DRP

We have a very similar setup in the house we moved into in February: c.2005 large-ish 'posh' glass conservatory that the previous owners treated as a normal room - no doors from main house, 3 decent size radiators, and..... *facepalm*  they installed the kitchen in there. The rest of the house does stay warm though, it is just the conny/kitchen and hallway that are cold. We're quite tight with the heating, but when needed the other rooms heat up quickly once the heating is on (hour in the morning , several in the evening at this time of year).

Given the autumn/winter cold and the searing heat of summer, we're not going to spend money on the stupid thing by reinstating doors or retrofitting roof insulation, we're going to borrow to replace it with a decent extension. We have an architect coming to survey in a few weeks. Obviously more lending is not an option for everyone. In our case we're likely to be here for a decade or so , so I think it will be money well spent.

ps. we did go into the house purchase with eyes open - having had conservatories in the past, we knew before we bought the place it was unlikely to be habitable!

Bendy_House

DRP said:

We have a very similar setup in the house we moved into in February: c.2005 large-ish 'posh' glass conservatory that the previous owners treated as a normal room - no doors from main house, 3 decent size radiators, and..... *facepalm*  they installed the kitchen in there. The rest of the house does stay warm though, it is just the conny/kitchen and hallway that are cold. We're quite tight with the heating, but when needed the other rooms heat up quickly once the heating is on (hour in the morning , several in the evening at this time of year).

Given the autumn/winter cold and the searing heat of summer, we're not going to spend money on the stupid thing by reinstating doors or retrofitting roof insulation, we're going to borrow to replace it with a decent extension. We have an architect coming to survey in a few weeks. Obviously more lending is not an option for everyone. In our case we're likely to be here for a decade or so , so I think it will be money well spent.

ps. we did go into the house purchase with eyes open - having had conservatories in the past, we knew before we bought the place it was unlikely to be habitable!

A 'posh' 'glass' conservatory might well be 80% of the way there towards being a 'proper' extension. Are you sure that what you have cannot be adapted - at far less cost - into a properly habitable room?

DRP

Bendy_House said:

DRP said:

A 'posh' 'glass' conservatory might well be 80% of the way there towards being a 'proper' extension. Are you sure that what you have cannot be adapted - at far less cost - into a properly habitable room?

Yes, absolutely right. That's one of the options we will explore with the architect tech fella who we have an appointment with. Beforehand, I will do a bit of digging around the base to look at the foundations, and in the existing walls to check if they're insulated etc