Conservatories in the 1970s were used as occasional garden rooms. Now a simple upgrade can convert them into year-round living spaces.
Too many conservatories built 40, 30 or even 10 years ago are not fit for purpose today. When you bought yours, you wanted an extension you could use throughout the year: somewhere warm in winter and cool in the summer. In hindsight, what you ended up with was a conservatory that left you sweltering in summer and freezing in winter.
Around 10,000 conservatories were installed in 1976 alone. While it may be too late to upgrade a 1970s aluminium conservatory, if your uPVC structure was built in the 1980s there are many things you can do to bring it up to date. Upgrading your old conservatory North Wales today means you could have something more like an extension rather an occasional garden room, giving you the year-round space you always wanted.
Temperature extremes
First, look at simply replacing the glass in your ageing conservatory. These days, the latest glass coatings make window panes much less prone to extremes in temperature. The technology keeps conservatories cooler in summer by reflecting heat away and warmer in winter.
Invisible to the naked eye, these microscopically thin coatings reflect the sun and stop harmful UV rays streaming into the property, reducing the solar gain. Today’s glass coatings make conservatories much more liveable in all year round.
Nowadays you can choose different glass specifications for any new conservatory. Replacing the glass in a south-facing window will reduce overheating in the rest of the space. Conversely, installing more energy-efficient glass in a particularly cold window in the extension will help keep the room warm.
Thermal efficiency
Meanwhile you may be getting tired of the aluminium sliding doors at the far end of your conservatory that you have had since the 1980s – but building regulations probably won’t let you replace them because you’ll lower the room’s thermal efficiency and put a cold spot at back of your house, which means even higher energy bills.
One solution might be to replace the roof. You could have solid tiles or a combined glass and solid roof, making your conservatory a seamless, open-plan part of your house – not just a bolt-on.
Mixing and matching between a solid roof and glass creates shaded areas where people can use laptops and phones, or watch TV. It’s much more in keeping with modern lifestyles. Twenty years ago, the Living Roof wasn’t an option.
The ceiling is plastered and insulated, so you get all the warmth you want. It’s the perfect solution for those who want the ease and cost-effectiveness of a conservatory with natural light. And your new insulation revives your existing structure, making it thermally efficient.
On a tiled roof extension, if you wish, you can have tiles that match your house – helping create a seamless extension – or lightweight synthetic tiles that are impossible to tell apart from the ground. It’s another example of how technology has progressed. Synthetic tiles are hard-wearing, have all-weather thermal insulation and come in a range of colours and styles. But best of all, they’re lightweight. Replacing the roof on an older conservatory, you have to be mindful of the weight. What you don’t want is your elderly conservatory collapsing under an unexpected dumping of snow.
On-trend colours
The frame itself is the final element to consider when upgrading your conservatory. While you’re improving the roof you can improve your wall frames with brick to give more of an extension look. People care more about what conservatories look like: 10 years ago, frames were either white or aluminium, but today you can opt for contemporary colours such as on-trend anthracite or chartwell green.
Most early conservatories were just glass boxes bolted on to the house, whereas the new generation tend to be designed to meld with the whole fabric of your home.
Dwarf walls run around the perimeter of your conservatory, so you could match the bricks of your dwarf wall to the original house. Older dwarf walls can be injected to become highly insulating. Or you could also insulate your conservatory floor as you might be losing heat downwards.
Rather than have an all-glass conservatory, corner pillars would transform your glass cube into a more elegant orangery structure. Having created a solid structure with high-level insulation, you can then balance the room’s temperature all year round.