Conservatory building firms - Sussex - Recommendations?

[Tim]

Good day :-)

In the continuing saga of moving my family in with Dad, I'm looking at adding a conservatory to his bungalow as a dining/random sitting area.

Sorry for being wufty, but although I'd love to build it myself, I'm not going to have time this year. So, has anyone heard of:

County Windows (Sussex) at Heathfield.

Or does anyone have any other recommendations in E Sussex/W Sussex/S Kent?

I'm after 4x3m approx, hardwood, good glass (argon filled prob.), insulated floor slab with heating. The work also involves removing a little sticky out lead-roofed extension from the back of the house and absorbing the area into the conservatory.

No structural work AFAICS (except maybe adding some supporting columns to the lintel where the little extension is now (2m wide hole in original wall of bungalow).

So far the above company say they can do all this - but I have no idea if they are actually any good or not.

BTW - It would be more obvious to plumb wet underfloor heating into the central heating but the chap at County said that that would invoke Building Regs and I should stick to "independant" heating (eg electric).

Any thoughts?

Ta muchly.

Timbo

[Christian McArdle]

AIUI, the regulation invoked would be that to maintain the conservatory exemption (which is essential to do), the heating system would need independent controls. This is easy enough to achieve with a zone valve and programmable thermostat. It is best done using an S-Plan-Plus layout so that it is completely independent of the house's heating state, although simply attaching the system up like a normal radiator would work, except for the fact that it would only operate when heat is required inside the house.

The important thing for building regulations is that it turns itself off when there is no call for heat inside the conservatory, which is easy to achieve. It should probably have independent timing control, too.

What you don't want is a 4x3m conservatory with electric heating, unless you're the Sultan of Brunei and don't mind seeing half your fortune disappear to the electricity company. At the very least, consider a little bit of electric heating to take the edge of the cold tiles, with a CH fan convector (or even standard radiator) to do the space heating.

Christian.

[Tim]

Ah. I'm going to be re-working most of the rads' plumbing anyway. The current setup is a bit "evolved" and I'm planning to install some Myson Kickspace fan convectors in place of rads to save space. So adding an extra controlled zone would be simple. S-Plan_plus is just a case of several circuits fed off the same pumped circuit, but controlled by independant electric-valves? (AFAIKS from google).

Presumably a seperate timer circuit is all that's needed? I could use fan convectors for a more instant warm up - but having a warm floor seems nice.

Heh.

That could work too.

Now to see if Dad's happy with all of this :-/

Thanks for your advice, Christian

[Christian McArdle]

Just use programmable thermostats for all your heating zones. Set the main programmer to always on.

Remember that underfloor heating doesn't suit everyone. It largely depends on the expected room usage. We use our conservatory as a dining room. It only really needs heat for an hour or so in the evening, unless we're having a party. Therefore, an oversized fan convector is ideal. Rapid warm up so we can eat, followed by a relatively rapid decline (as we haven't totally heated the structure). Underfloor heating is a much more gradual affair, where you can't just turn it on and off at will. It is more suitable for a room that gets consistent usage throughout the evening, such as a lounge.

This is why I might suggest a system that uses both underfloor and fan convectors. This gives the best of all worlds. Rapid heat up of the space, with the cold tiles eliminated. In my case I have no need for underfloor as well, as the flooring is wood. The thermal insulation provided mean your feet don't get unduly cold, or won't when I install the insulation, anyway, so a gale doesn't blow between the cracks (suspended floor, with no actual wall separating the subfloor from the great outdoors as yet).

Christian.

[Tim]

Sounds like the way to go. I was even thinking of putting electric valves on all the remaining rads. I remember a type that was based on a heating coil and a thermo-expanding inside (poss fluid). Small, looked like a normal thermostatic valve. I might consider using X10 to achieve full remote control - that would be an interesting project and cut down on wiring and give me flexible control possibilities.

That makes sense. I have a small conservatory in my rented house at present - and a 2kW fan heater does a good job of getting it upto temperature for short periods. Mind you, I'm expecting this new one to be used constantly (will have sproglet's play area, washing machine/dryer and dining area (breakfast lunch and tea) - so permanant floor heating will possibly suit it better - just on a different timing schedule to the lounge...

I suppose I could use wet underfloor and a fan/convector - seems sensible to make full use of the C/H. Asumming the boiler's good for it - going to inspect on Saturday. The Myson units are 200 quid so that's not much in the grand scale of costs.

Thanks for the input.

Timbo

[Tim]

On another tack, what should I specify in order to get good thermal insulation in the floor slab (concrete)?

Ta muchly

Timbo

[Christian McArdle]

Remember that the fan convector needs to be plumbed in with a 2 port valve for maximum benefit. Otherwise, it'll hog the flow and get slightly warm even when off.

Christian.

[Christian McArdle]

Standard building regulations should take care of this. OK, so a conservatory is exempt from most regulations, but just get the floor laid to building regs standards anyway.

Christian.

[Tim]

Ah of course. Myson don't make a point of saying this...

Given that B&Q sell zone valves for 35-40 quid, I should be able to get them for 20-ish somewhere sensible :->

I can definately see soem X10 coming here ...

Ta muchly

Timbo