Well if you were going to have a conservatory/extension built for an extra living room/utility room. Would you have a solid or glass/conservatory roof?

Karen

I would have a glass roof. :-)

We have heat diffusing glass which lets the light in but keeps the heat out! a solid roof would have meant using lights in both lounge and kitchen all day long.
Jacqueline :)

Thank you good points the thing is it drives you made tying to think the best options.

Porkie , Does light not come in your windows ;-)

IT would depend which way it faces - our conservatory faces south and it get bloomin' warm in there sometimes - I have to keep the doors closed between it and the house, or hot air permeates the whole house.  OR I open ALL the doors and windows and create a through draft (and then have to shut them all before I go out)  Ofcourse the opposite is true in winter - we often don't need heating until late in the day because of the effect of even the weak winter sun warming the whole house.......  I think I'd have a solid roof if given the choice in these circumstances.

Hi Kazz,

I would never have a glass roof.  I have the frame of mind that is I spend £10k on my house it has to add at least £15K ;-)

Believe it or not it makes a huge difference in how much it adds to the value of the house. A proper/solid tiled roof is classed as extra floor space and is valued accordenly  SO if you add a 25 Sqm onto your house as a proper roofed extension then the floor area of the house goes up that much.  Approx £1000-£2000 per metre depending on where you live.

The glass roof will be seen as a conservatory and will be priced as this also. A conservatory is not seen as a 365 day room techincally. Some use it all year I know.  It doesn't actually count fully toward the floor area of a house but as an " extra"  They generally only add what they cost to the value of the house.

Ooooo.....i didnt know that Blue. My OH builds houses, so i must ask him why that is when he gets in. I always fancied a room with a glass roof too.

Mackleback,

I will tell you if you like ;-)

Glass roofed extensions like Conservatories are not classed as permenant buildings , they are not designed to last like a house is. Now a slight difference would be if you constructed an extension with traditional walling but put a huge glass roof or part roof. Anything like a conservatory will only honeslty add what it costs roughly. 

I have built 4 houses and in addition to them I have bought and sold about 20.

Most conservatories need replaced after 15 years or so. :-) or they certainly look very very tired. Some of the very high quality ones perhaps a bit more but it would be rare to see any of the standing in 50 years in the same condition as the house.

Does that make sense??

I have a conservatory as an extra room.  We use it as a Dining Room with a third partitioned off as a utility room and dog room.

We thought long and hard whether to have a traditional extention or a conservatory.  The extention was going to be far more expensive mainly due to the roof.

So we have a consevatory, but with the windowsils up a lot higher then usual and double french doors.  One side wall is all brick.  The partition is brick, but topped in granite as are the windowsils.  The finishing touch was to plaster all the walls, not leave them as exposed brick.  The result is it goes in an oblong along the entire width of the bungalow.

As to the roof, we found this the hardest decision too.  We went for Plastic? (I know it's not, but can't remember what it is called) 50mm thick with a blue tinge.  I am so pleased we did, firstly it doesn't get so hot and secondly it doesn't show all the bits that fall on it.

In hindsight, a proper roof extention would have cut so much light out of the lounge, which is where it comes off of.

I wish we could have afforded to do it years ago, it has made such a difference.

Little tip:  If you go for a hard floor, splash out on the underfloor heating mats.  We find in the winter we do not need any additional heating and the tiles are lovely and warm underfoot.

Hope this helps
Sandra

Edited to say:  I fully intend mine to last a lot longer then 15 years.  Other then the roof it looks like an extention.

In reply to Blue,because we had a brick wall on one end of the conservatory and half brick then window on the other end ( the conservatory is 22' wide,12' deep on the kitchen end and 15' deep on the lounge end with bay windows, victorian style roof, it would have cut light from the house with a solid roof.
We did pay a lot for the conservatory ,it has patio doors to the garden and french doors from the lounge so is used daily. The door locks correspond to outdoor security levels and due to its size, we did obtain full planning consent although most do not require actual planning consent as they are generally not considered true building extensions, more of a 'garden extension and not as a permanent feature'. However ours has been built to a high standard and is now about 8yrs old and still looks like new.
We had the house valued for insurance when our mortgage finished 3yrs ago and the estate agent said it would definately increase the property value as an added room, compared to other houses in our area, but I do agree it depends on where you live and the type of accomodation you have, as a fully brick built extension, with solid roof may add more value. Ours also has two double rads. for winter and is fully plastered with no brick showing, laminate floor, plus underfloor hot water pipes to the rads. so it is an all year round room :D especially good for Christmas time!

Jacqueline :)

>especially good for Christmas time!

I love ours at Christmas too.  The tree goes out there and the table is nicely decorated and loads of candles around.

We have french doors into the lounge which are always open too, it is just like another room, infact it gets more use then the lounge.  I agree with Porkie, by putting an end wall, high windows and plastering the bickwork it does feel like a part of the house.  I would not have wicker furniture either, just a normal dining table and chairs.

Not cheap either, but worth every penny.

Thanks Blue......i get it now. ;-) :D

Thanks all. I was thinking of having brick rather than all glass. And having the windows higher thana normal conservatory ie normal house height so it loks like part of the house not a conservatory.

I will look into having the solid roof but looking around here all I see are glass or "plastic" roofs no solid.  I  will consider the tinted though rather than clear glass.

Karen

Kazz if you give me your e-mail address I will send you a picture of our recent extension if you like. It is  5 metres x 5 metres and has angled corners so shaped to give it a summer room look but just a lot bigger than a summer room , windows are normal hieght from ground as rest of the house but there are  5 big windows in it and 2 sets of french doors.  I just took a picture of ours to send to my disabled father as he cant get to see it at the moment.

The other thing to consider is access, both to clean existing windows and to clean the glass roof - there is nothing that looks worse than a conservatory with a green roof.

Thank Blue I have sent you a PM. Thanks Karen

Kazz sent you a few.. you can see it is most face brick but I hate to see obvious extensions and I think doing it that way you don't get that obvious look..:-)

I can bare the look of the roofs personally..