Building your own connservatory - How hard ?

[paulfoel]

I'm talking about the ones that places like B+Q/Wickes sell ?

How hard are they to do yourself ?

[manatbandq]

There are loads of conservatory installers around and they're all basically very similar in concept so it can't be that hard.

"How hard are they to do yourself and make a good job that will enhance the enjoyment and value of your home?" is a totally different question that you should also consider.

MBQ

[deano]

My dad and I put one on the back of his previous house, some years ago now. During construction of an extension, he had the builders put down a floorslab for the proposed construction, so we didn't do that bit, but it's simple enough.

We then merely collected a few brochures, chose the one he liked (Wickes), bought our own timber, windows, doors, roof sheeting etc from various suppliers and built the thing ourselves. Relatively easy to do, easy paced, sunny afternoons on a bit by bit basis.

All depends on how complex you want it to look. The location, levels, base, wall covering, access, size, services and tools you have, will all be issues.

For us, it was a simple matter of fixing wall plates for top of roof pitch, bottom of roof pitch and floor plates. Build frames for walls, sit roof sections on top of wall frames and fixed to roof plates with appropriate tenon and crows-feet (?) joints. This gave us our frame which we then simply nogged out, braced, allowed for door and window cases and then insulated and cladded inside and out!

So, it's one of those really... where do you want to go???

g'luck

d.

[Christian McArdle]

I built one from

It looks fantastic and was very simple. The most difficult bit was putting the huge double glazed roof panels in.

I assembled a full height model, with wooden panels in the bottom quarter. It has a single Georgian bar, and is fully double glazed. It is of excellent quality. The Georgian bar is real, requiring additional sealed units, rather than just stuck on beading.

By making it full height, there were no issues with needing dwarf walls built. Due to poor site access, rather than doing a traditional concrete base, mine is built on a metal framework on small concrete block pad foundations.

Construction was very simple, but plenty of work. This was particularly the case as my chosen paint system required 4 coats and it decided to rain for 2 weeks in late July as I was trying to construct it, so it had to be painted indoors, one panel at a time, with careful rotation of the panels. If we could have just lined the panels up outside against the fence and painted them in one go, it would have been a fraction of the effort.

Christian.

[Doctor Evil]

Who did you buy your conservatory from? Balic Pine or Eze Builder?

[Christian McArdle]

The conservatory from Baltic Pine and the metal base from Ezebuilder.

Christian.

[Rick]

I have built a large part of my house myself, with litte previous experience. Its not hard, but it will take you longer than it will take a pro.

If a bit turns out crap, you simply knock it down,, and try again, bricks and mortar (for example) are very cheep.

You need some good plans, and a have a go attitude.

Rick

[PC Paul]

I built a Wickes one - modern uPVC style. Very straightforward - basically double glazed panels with uPVC round the edge.

You laid the base sill on a slab or suspended floor (I got a builder in for the slab), then the panels just clicked into place next to each other and a plastic strip slid in between to lock them together.

Once all the panels and the doorframe (same system) were up, the eaves sit on top and the roof joists go between the eaves and an aluminium extrusion bolted to the wall. Then pop the triplewall polycarbonate in, fit the seals and doors and you're done.

Except for a few minor drips and leaks which took a little while to track down, it was easy, but sometimes heavy work. I'd do it again.

The only tricky bits were fitting all the seals and plastic strips (plant sprayers full of soapy water worked wonders there), and making it all weathertight in the end.

But at £5.5K for a 20'x8' DG uPVC conservatory (including the slab) I was happy!

[Badger]

Sounds good, our wooden one cost under a grand to build and "floats" on a simple lightweight base, a uPVC one would break due to the oaks causing movement...

They explaining to a CRO that you cannot install a *modern* one with a

*modern* door though!

[paulfoel]

Hmmm. Not so sure my attitude is 'have a go'. More like 'leave it alone if you don't know what your doing' !!!!