General Chat

We do not have a conservatory, but friends of ours do. Like Sandra, my dad installed a radiator for them, run from the central heating system in the house, through a hole in the outside wall of the house for the pipework.

They now use it as their main living room all year round.

Dianne xx

We have one which runs across the back of the house (behind lounge and dining room) with french doors from both into it. We have a 3 pce in, TV, music centre, etc and it doubles as a second lounge - especially handy when the daughters etc are back at home and we have a full house!

We do not have central heating in it but do use it all the time, as you say, during the summer months. It does get hot but we fling open its double doors and both sets of lights have fans (which can be switched on independently - without the lights) and it soon cools down and blows through. We love it and, as you say, you can almost eat out in the garden without having to move out there lock, stock and barrel - so much easier.

We don't tend to use it quite so much in the winter but it does have an electric fire (and fireplace) in and we bring in a very effective wheeled calor gas heater to boost it when we need to warm it up very quickly.

On the other hand, when we weren't using it over part of Christmas, it did make an excellent extension to the 'fridge for all the extra Christmas food during the very cold spell.

Looking back, I wouldn't like to be without it now.

We have one and we use it all year. Have put a radiator in it and blinds on the windows. My grandsons use it as a playroom, but i will not have a tv in it . We enjoy being in it at night with a glass of wine .

You'd be better off fixing fly screens over your open windows & door to your conservatory. I always do that in the spring/summer and have no problems with bees etc..

Wend dont think blinds will stop them.They get stuck behind the blinds and you want to see the mess when hubby unhooks the ceiling blinds.Annie

We have a small glass one. It faces SW and does get pretty hot in there on sunny days. Blinds have been on the 'to-do' list for the 14 years we've lived here, but I put up two umbrellas when it's really hot. I tend to overwinter any delicate plants in there which would suffer in my non-heated greenhouse and have a thermostatically controlled fan heater. I have 2 Bougainvilleas and a small lemon tree as well.

The problem I find is that bumble bees fly in through the windows in the summer and can't find their way out - also dragonflies, butterflies and sometimes birds. Must get some blinds this year, I think.

I have one and could not be without it.With all my big family its well used.I have a radiator on now (winter) and a cooling system in the summer.The blinds have a reflector in the middle of them so they can all be pulled down and you still have daylight.We were also told not to clean the roof,as the dirt collects that also keeps the heat off? Annie

Im hoping to talk my partner Tony into us having one! I usually get my own way so fingers crossed! Lol x

Not answering your question but as an observation I wish we had the room to add one

We have a glass one. We use it from about March to the end of October, for hot days (it faces SW), we have blinds we can pull down over the windows and the roof has blinds also. There are the odd days when it is too hot to sit in at midday. We used to use it more in the winter as it absorbed heat from the house and we have a fan heater out there, however, since we had the house walls cavity insulated the ehat doesn't seep through to the conservatory, a plus in one way but not in another Lol!!!

One plus is that on wet summer days we dry the washing out there.

In the winter we keep some of our pelargoniums in there and it becomes more of a store room for shoes, bird feed etc. We have never regretted having it.

I'm inclned to agree with your partner. I used to have one but after just a few years we turned it into a proper extention with an insulated ceilng so it could be used all year. As a conservatory it was freezng in winter and the condensation was awful.

We have one that runs the width of the house and we use it as our study at one end. Our PC desks are side by side and face out over the garden and the fields at the back.

It's half brick with insulated lining and has 2 radiators to keep us warm in winter. In summer we lift all the blinds and open the patio doors.

It's my favourite room.

Gwynne

We have a conservatory - no extra heating or cooling - but it has worked as a wonderful extra sitting room - with the glass windows it usually warms up enough to use from the end of March to the end of October when you can feel you're enjoying summer light. We're both now old enough to hate the idea of dragging rugs and cushions out into the garden to sit on the grass!, and most outdoor chairs are pretty rigid, not the sort to sit back in comfort with a newspaper. Do get the sort of chairs you could fall asleep in!

Does anyone out there have a conservatory? Do you use it a lot? And how do you heat it and keep it air conditioned in the summer? I would like a conservatory added on to the back of my house but my partner says they not worth the monay we will never use it & it will be too hot in summer & freezing in winter and cost too much to heat!