conservatory roofs

[mmurph30]

Glass or polycarbonate? tinted or non-tinted? pro's & con's Please!

[mike. buckley]

In message , mmurph30 writes

Just had ours put up this week. Gone for polycarbonate in a white tint. Couldn't justify the cost of glass when all it seems to do is make rain quieter. We can hear the rain through the french doors in the living room, but it's actually quite pleasant.

[Dan Gravell]

I'm not sure how much better glass is, but the poly roof on my conservatory is ruddy noisy when it rains. It's so loud, in fact, it's barely habitable when it rains hard of (heaven forbid) hails.

Dan

[Christian McArdle]

Glass: Looks good. I mean really good. Harder to install and more expensive.

Polycarbonate: Looks cheap. I mean really cheap. Sounds like a tonne of gravel in a concrete mixer when it rains.

There's nothing like being able to see the sky and clouds through the roof. Vastly superior to the translucent appearance of polycarbonate. It is simply the better, but more expensive option.

As I understand it, both double glazed glass and triple wall polycarbonate have passable insulation value, making the room heatable in most cases.

Christian.

[mike. buckley]

In message , Christian McArdle writes

In the case of a South facing wall doesn't the glass have to be treated to reflect uv and keep the conservatory at a liveable temperature? Not relevant in our case as the premium for glass was going to end up being such a large %age of the quote we decided early on that it wasn't an option for us. We already have rain noise in garage and utility room that can be heard in the kitchen - as there is a corrugated steel roof over them, we're used to it. If we ever come to sell with a bit of luck it won't be raining when people come to view :-)

[Christian McArdle]

I'm sure just using blinds would reflect most heat, although mine faces NW and I don't even have blinds or a ventilator. It was cool enough just opening the doors/window.

Mine was Baltic Pine and they had an "extras half price" offer that we totally hammered, with full height frames, wood paneled, double glazing throughout, double glazed roof, in height fanlights with georgian bar (not stick on jobs, they actually supply 3 glazed units per frame), beaded arches, low maintenance capping etc.

It looks fantastic. Working backwards from the quote, we think the glazed roof cost us about 400 quid extra on top of the basic conservatory quote, although I don't recall seeing an itemised breakdown. The delivery driver was not happy, though. The roof glazed units were quite phenominal in size.

The size was 3.1m x 2.6m, with the 3.1m being the slope, (lean-to roof).

Christian.

[Mary Fisher]

That's interesting, the only possibility for us to have a 'garden room' would be on a due north-facing wall and Spouse thinks it's a no-no. I'm sure it would be an asset in many ways - and would also mean that my clay bread oven would be protected :-)

Mary

[Keith Oliver]

I would definitely go for glass if you can afford it. I have a polycarbonate roof and although cheap and easy to fit it could do with replacing now. However, It has lasted 18 years which I guess aint bad but glass should last a lifetime.

Aesthetically glass wins hands down in my opinion but I probably won't be able to replace PC with glass without rebuilding the roof.

Does anyone know of any other alternatives? Maybe a compromise denser, fully transparent plastic which is manufactured for roofs? Done a bit of research myself but most of the acrylic or perpex alternatives comes in much smaller sheets which don't seem designed for roofing

Keith

[mmurph30]

We're east facing at the back of the house, so we only get the sun in that area up until about one in the afternoon. Waiting to see what the quote will be. Thanks fot the advice :-)

[Paper2002AD]

If you go for nice clean see-through glass, think about how you're gonna keep it that way

[nightjar]

The problem with blinds is that they need to be outside to reflect the heat before it gets into the conservatory. I've just re-done a south-facing roof in southern France. That was no more than 12 years old, had gone yellow and had had holes punched in the outer skin by hail. I went for triple wall polycarbonate from C&A Plastics which has a perforated metal film inside the top skin. That is very effective at cutting down the heat gain, even from the Mediterranean sun. It also gives a pleasant silvery look to the roof from inside.

By a quirk of the house dimensions, the roof panels were exactly the width of the sheets I bought in the UK, while the original owner had needed to cut down the sheets that he presumably had sourced in France.

In the UK, I have fitted a thermostatically controlled extract fan in an all-glass conservatory that gets afternoon sun. In summer, it can heat the entire house up several degrees above ambient without that.

Colin Bignell

[Christian McArdle]

Agreed. I've got access from a window just above and can get pressure washer/foaming hot brush to it. Because the structure has to be strong enough for the glass panels, it is actually quite able to take a person's weight up there. Indeed, the joist dimensions just about comply with Part A for a habitable floor. Not that I'm proposing climbing on the roof just to clean it.

Christian.