Conservatory Heaters

[MarkMc]

We're having trouble heating our conservatory in a cost-effective manner.

When we bought the house, the conservatory had two Dimplex heaters, and these seemed to do the job really well, but they cost a small fortune to run all winter, so we bought two 400W flat panel heaters which can be painted to match the decor. We find these to be woefully inadequate, and recently, in the cold weather, I brought in a large electrical oil filled radiator from my garage, and that just about keeps the chill off the place.

The Conservatory is 19'x9' victorian style, which goes up to a peak(pitched roof). It's made of UPVC, and the roof is plastic too, although the glass is all double-glazed units.

We want to use this as our dining room, but it's just too cold at the moment. Can anybody suggest a cost-effective way of heating this space? (Adding a central heating radiator is not an option according to my wife).

Regards, Mark

[Christian McArdle]

You can't heat it cheaply on electricity. You just can't. It doesn't matter what type of electric heating you use, it will either not work, or be expensive.

What is her objection? One solution is to fit a fan convector, which is basically a fan assisted radiator. It can go into unused space above the door (blowing down), on the wall, or even under the floor, blowing hot air upwards. It will be much smaller than the equivalent standard radiator and cost about 1/4 of an equivalent electric fan heater to run.

Christian.

[Jim Alexander]

Cheapest shot - change your wife, unless her opinion is well informed technically (which I doubt on no safe defensible ground).

Unfortunately there is no cheap way of heating a poorly insulated space. The cheapest way requires the energy source with the lowest unit cost taking into account conversion efficiency. That's probably mains gas if you have it and the most effective and controllable way is to extend the central heating. The controllability helps the economy if done properly. You could also consider gas convectors if you can extend the gas. Radiant heaters will give a feeling of wellbeing without wastefully heating the structure. A bit of background warmth and quartz electric heaters might help but basically electricity is expensive any which way.

Jim A

[David W.E. Roberts]

If it is all double glazed glass and plastic then it will be difficult to heat economically anyway - too much heat loss.

I guess you could look at insulating at least the roof sections (with e.g. bubble wrap products) during the winter and hanging heavy curtains around the sides to improve the general insulation.

I assume something run off the central heating would be more cost effective than stand alone electric heaters of any kind.

We don't heat our sun room (solid insulated roof forming the balcony floor above) and we were told when it was built (at least 10 years ago now) that it would have to be triple glazed to be classed as habitable all year under Building Regs., instead of occasional use (i.e. summer). [No doubt there are technical/regs. terms for this but that was what was meant.]

Building Inspector basically said "You aren't going to install radiators, are you.", obviously leaving us the option to fit them later if we so wished.

So spend a fortune on heating the outside of your house, up the insulation, or don't use it in the coldest part of the year.

HTH Dave R

[Dave Plowman (News)]

All electric heaters are near 100% efficient. Some may distribute the heat throughout the room better than others, but that's all.

You need to use a cheaper fuel.

[Tim S]

What I am wondering is whether the OP could change the roof panels for something better.

While I was looking at conservatories I considered the insulation in some detail, so I could afford to heat it all year (but from the CH mind)

There does seem to be quite a wide variety of roof panelling available ranging from thin (like I have in my rented house, which is crap) to thick multiple layer + coated polycarb. So, might be worth finding out what the thickest panels the frame would take is and then finding the best roofing in that range? I wouldn't expect it to cost an awful lot to remove the old panels and have new ones cut to match then fit. Proding the frame will take higher spec panels of course...

Another thing to consider is the floor insulation - there probably isn't any subfloor insulation. Would the OP consider thick underlay and carpet acceptable?

My 0.02Euro's worth..

Tim

[RichardS]

LOL!

It'd be cheaper to install a wood burner & use nice crisp five pound notes for fuel.....

[Mike]

It's a conservatory - not a dining room. It's meant for summer use and was allowed easy planning permission because of this.

There is a consultative paper doing the rounds in Whitehall at this very moment on this issue.

[Owain]

That's how people heat yachts isn't it :-)

In terms of calorific value per £ I suspect that one-pound notes give better value. Unfortunately they are getting hard to find even in Scotland.

Owain

[chris French]

In message , RichardS writes

We are in the middle of buying our new house. It has an old Victorian conservatory. Running up the house wall away from it is an interesting flue arrangement - sort of looks like half pipes set into the wall, running up to the chimney stacks.

Appears to have been for some sort of heating stove in the conservatory. I have wondered if something could be reinstated.

[MarkMc]

My wife requires all year 'round heating to keep her plants alive.......

Currently, we use the conservatory for summer, but with our young family growing up, we don't get to sit in it very often at all now, and our dining room ajoins our lounge (which isn't that large). With the two rooms knocked in to one, and the dining table dumped in the conservatory, things are a bit more practical for the kids.

The floor is really nicely tiled, but I suspect it has no insulation at all.

Oh well, looks like I need to bend over and take the Electricity bills like a man...

Thanks for your suggestions.

Cheers, Mark

[Tim Mitchell]

In article , MarkMc writes

We also have stuck our dining table out there, but we just heat ours up if/when we use it. It heats up in about 20mins using one of those 2KW electric convectors from Argos (& cools down just as fast when the heater is turned off). The heater probably isn't on for more than an hour in most usages.

[John Rumm]

Or, how about fitting a heat pump air conditioner? They recover heat from outside during the winter. A good one will recover 3kW worth of heating into the room for every 1kW of electricity used - that is 4kW total. That brings the price of using electric heating down to gas levels.