Conservatory vents?

[D.M.Chapman]

Just fixed the leaking conservatory roof with some more felt and bodging bitumin (fantastic stuff. Sticks like wotsit and would seal the titantic) and while sat on the roof I was pondering...

Our conservatory is pretty crap, came with the house, no expense spent etc.

It's a lean to style, 4.5m wide, and 3,5 metre deep (at deepest point, it's actually an L shap). Roof is twinwall plastic crappy panels.

Sunny days it gets rediculously hot in there.

First thing, while sat there I noticed a green house a few door up that has been painted with that white shade stuff. This got me thinking...

wilkos sell

any one know how much difference a coat of that to the roof might make? I assume it works ok for green houses... it's cheap enough that I don't care if it only lasts one summer. Any one tried? Don't care about the look from inside, we have large curtains things that hang from the ceiling hiding the mess (and collecting dead flies).

In addition to this, I wondered about adding a vent of some sort. Something to let the hot air escape would have a massive impact - but I want something that's easy to retrofit, and ideally, doesn't need me to remove the roof panel (given the state of the seals, I don't think it'll ever go back :)

Something like

maybe (although I'd want white). Or, maybe a solar powered extract fan (although I have visions of those being a)crap and b)noisy and irritating).

Any ideas for quick, easy, cheapish wins?

Darren

[Huge]

A huge difference. My wife paints her greenhouse with this stuff every year. It must reduce the temperature in there by 20 degrees.

[David WE Roberts]

Not really what you asked, but one of our local DG firms sells a kit which converts a conservatory roof into an insulated pitch roof. Fit insulation betweeen the glazing bars then metal sheet dummy tiles over the top. Turns a conservatory into a better insulated sun room. As far as I can tell most peple who buy a conservatory (especially on a south facing wall) then spend loads more money trying to keep the sun out.

Cheers

Dave R

[scorched]

I gave ours a coat of paint [1], it deffo helps a lot maybe 10 or 11 degrees but discolours and starts to wear off after a couple of years.

[1] Some "special" stuff with micro granules supposed to increase reflection factor, lemme see if I can find the name (whistling) Hmmmm, "paco systems" but they don't seem to do it any more. You lose about 40% light.

[Tim Lamb]

Yes. You can get *auto-vents* intended for greenhouse use. These work on the expansion of wax principle and come in two flavours: auto opening roof light or tilting louvres for the walls.

[Huge]

Yep, the greenhouse has those, too.

[D.M.Chapman]

Ok, thanks all for the feedback. I was in town yesterday so picked up some of the greenhouse shade stuff, painted the roof last night so will see how much difference that makes.

Someone suggested the roof vents used in caravans - they certainly look cheaper but need someone to open them from what I can see (as in, they have handles for hands, not a screw opener for a pole). Guess that makes sense, caravans don't tend to have big tall ceilings :-)

Also pondering a fan in the wall - but looking at them, there is a bewildering choice and none seem to be temperature switched (only humidity).

I assume a central heating thermostat would do as long as its a change over switch. Normal operation would be the opposite to what I want - I'd want it to turn on above temp, not off.

The other thing is the noise levels - quick look at screwfix catalogue shows fans from 32dBA to over 50dBA (at 3m). I've no idea what that actually means in the real world - just how annoying is a 40dBA fan going to be for example? Is 32dBA whisper quiet? Just pondering this at the mo, will need more investigation to find one that I can fit to the plastic panels in the side (maybe one designed for window mounting?)

Cheers,

Darren