Conservatories with an insulated solid tiled roof are 15 times more thermally efficient than a polycarbonate or an old glass conservatory roof. Transform your existing conservatory into a beautiful cosy living space to enjoy all year round.
Insulating a conservatory roof is becoming an increasingly popular home improvement, as homeowners look to extend the use of this space throughout the year. Conservatories can be a lovely addition to any home with a view; the idea is that they provide a warm, comfortable place to enjoy the sunshine and admire your surroundings. The problem is they do not always match up to expectations.Â
Anyone with a greenhouse in their garden knows that sun shining through glass makes the interior very warm. A conservatory is the same. Likewise, the very best double glazing is less than half as good as a wall at keeping warmth in, so a conservatory might get too cold for comfort in winter.
Insulating a conservatory roof helps to level out the temperature so you can enjoy the space more throughout the seasons. Greenoak Concept & Design guide weighs up the pros and cons to help you decide whether insulating a conservatory roof is the right decision for your home.
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Before
Why insulate a conservatory?
Insulation is a very important part of any home. Certain areas of your house may already be insulated, such as the loft or walls. This is to maintain a comfortable environment throughout the property.
As an additional living space, the conservatory is no different. By insulating a conservatory roof, you can help ensure that the whole area is usable all year round or for more months of the year.
Insulating a Conservatory: Where should you insulate?
The most obvious target for insulation is the conservatory roof. Most of the heat in the conservatory escapes through the roof and most of the solar heat enters through the roof.
Insulating a conservatory roof requires you to either cover the existing roof with a new conventional tile or slate roof which Greenoak strongly disagree with, as this adds weight load to you exciting roof which it wasn’t designed for. Another alternative is to install a lightweight tiled insulation system, designed for your exciting.
Elsewhere in a conservatory, the walls – which are actually windows – should not be tampered with for insulation purposes. Unlike with insulating a wall inside your home, the only realistic options here are thermal insulated curtains or blinds. It is likely they will not be needed across the whole windows and usually installing these to the north and east- facing windows will do the best. The floor in most conservatories tends to have a hard surface, finished in tiles or wood. There is usually some understandable reluctance to rip it all out only to install some insulation, so consider rugs as a practical alternative.
How to Insulate a Conservatory Roof
Insulating a roof on a house, if done properly, will achieve a U-value of no more than 0.16W/m2K. By comparison, you can expect a polycarbonate conservatory roof to have a U-value of 1.6W/m2K to 2.4W/m2K — that’s at least 10 times worse than the average house roof.
The only way to achieve that better U-value when it comes to conservatory roofs is to replace the polycarbonate with a Insulated tiled roofing system with the same level of insulation as that on the house, at a cost of maybe £10,000 plus.
Insulating a conservatory roof is an increasingly popular area of the construction industry; there are more companies offering to install solid roofs on conservatories than ever before.
But and this is a big but, retrofitting a solid roof pre-supposes that the frame of the conservatory is sufficiently strong to carry a solid roof. This must always be checked prior to undertaking the work, this is done via Greenoaks own surveyors.
How much does it cost to insulate a conservatory roof?
Replacing a polycarbonate or Glass with an insulated solid roof will cost in the region of £10,000+ but vary on styles and sizes.
How much heat is saved by insulating a conservatory roof?
A wholly glazed conservatory of 4m by 5m is likely to need around 3kW of heating in winter.
- That same room with a solid roof will need around 2.5kW, which means a 16% saving by using just insulation alone.
Will insulating the roof make a conservatory cooler in summer?
Will insulating the roof make a conservatory cooler in summer?
It depends on whether you want to use the conservatory in summer or winter. The point of a conservatory is to provide homeowners with a warm, light, airy room with a sense of outdoors without being outdoors. For what are probably obvious reasons, an uninsulated structure made principally of glass really cannot be expected to do that. But with more of us now working from home more than ever, you can now have the extra room you have longed for without the expensive outlay of a garden room or extension.
It must be accepted that whatever insulation is installed, the large areas of glass mean that a conservatory will always be less thermally efficient than the rest of your house. However, yes, it is worth insulating a conservatory roof, as it is the biggest culprit in terms of both internal heat loss and solar heat gain. Insulating a conservatory roof will increase the chances of making your conservatory both more practical and enjoyable throughout the year.
