Conservatory - removing house connecting doors ?

[Chaz Pope]

Hi all

We are getting quotes for a conservatory and wondering what to do with the connecting doors.

Ideally we would have the doors removed but maybe at a later date when we have tried it with the doors in place (both the big double door to the living room and the kitchen door will be enlcosed by the conservatory)

We have so far been told slightly inconsitent stories by various conservatory salesmen and I wonder what the actual situation really is:

- do we need 'building regulation permission' if we are to ever remove the doors ?

- we were quoted from 1500 to 800 for 'building regulations fee' in order to be able to do this - what is reasonable ?

- is it true that we can only do this before the conservatory is erected and we cannot ever do it after ?

- is it true that if we use 'K-glass' we can remove the doors without needing this document ?

- if we remove the doors ourselves after the conservatiory is built - would we void our house insurance ?

your advice would be appreciated

thank you

chaz

[Simon]

Without the doors, as far as regs go, its an extension and not a conservatory. As such, it has to compy with insulation requirements, which would be very difficult even with fancy glass. You would not get building regulation approval with the doors off, unless you could add enough extra insulation to the rest of the house to make up the lack. This would required whole house calculations, and would be rather difficult.

Assuming you mean 500, that sounds reasonable for someone drawing or submitting the plans / building notice and doing some admin.

If you do it beforehand it will be rather cold and drafty I suspect ! They would not believe this was the "original condition" of the house. That trick might work with other things around the house however. If you take the door off after it has been inspected, nobody will know. Lots of people do this. Put them back on when its time to sell. Heating bills will be high in winter though.

By "document" do you mean the regs approval ? K-glass alone would not get by. Maybe some fancy argon filled triple glazing would do, like you see on grand designs etc. It would cost a fortune.

Maybe if someone broke into the conservatory (removed a glass panel) and then got into a "house without a door", they would not pay up ?

One reason to have everything properly approved is to avoid giving the insurance excuses not to pay up (especially with electical work etc).

If I have any above points wrong, someone will point it out ;-)

Simon.

[geraldthehamster]

They'll probably be open a lot of the time in the summer anyway, so if they're in the way of furniture, etc., you could take them off, and put them back on in winter. My only concern would be to make sure that the outside entrance to the conservatory was warm.

I'd leave the issue of whether to take the doors off until it was built, done and dusted, though. As someone else has remarked, if it's built with no doors, it won't meet the definition of a conservatory, and is unlikely to meet regs for an extension.

Regards Richard

[geraldthehamster]

"My only concern would be to make sure that the outside entrance to the conservatory was warm."

but what I meant to say was

"My only concern would be to make sure that the outside entrance to the conservatory was *secure*."

D'oh, etc.

Regards Richard

[Jim]

You won't be able to meet building regulations without the doors without spending an unrealistic amount of money.

You might want to look at the modern folding sliding doors which can fold away to one side and give a flush threshold to the opening which probably is what you're after anyway.

[Chaz Pope]

Assuming you mean 500, that sounds reasonable for someone drawing or submitting the plans / building notice and doing some admin.

no I meant 1500 - we were told 1500, 1300 , 800 - by 3 different salesmen

also they were quite confident that we will have no problem getting it approved without doors as long as we pay of course. I dread to think what happens if we pay but end up getting it 'disapproved' ?