Conservatory Roof Replacement

The problem a new roof actually solves

Almost nobody rings us about a conservatory roof because of how it looks. They ring because the room is unusable. From November it is too cold to sit in without a heater running constantly, from June it is too hot to sit in at all, and in heavy rain a polycarbonate roof drums so loudly that the room empties. All three of those come from the same place, which is a roof with no meaningful insulation over your head.

A glass roof is quieter than polycarbonate and slightly better in winter, but it still loses heat upward all night and still admits a large amount of solar gain in summer. Replacing the roof rather than the whole conservatory keeps the frames, the base and the doors you already have and fixes the part that never worked.

What we fit and how it is built

We fit a lightweight insulated tiled warm roof onto your existing frames. The structure is an aluminium rafter system carrying insulated panels, finished outside with lightweight tiles and inside with a boarded and plastered ceiling. Because the panels are light, the existing ring beam and frames carry the load in the great majority of cases, and we check that as the first job at survey rather than assuming it.

• Old polycarbonate or glass roof stripped and taken away the same morning
• Structural check on the frames, ring beam and base before anything new goes on
• Insulated panel and rafter system installed with a full vapour control layer
• Lightweight tiles in slate grey, charcoal, terracotta or brown
• Roof windows or glazed panels where you want to keep daylight overhead
• Internal ceiling boarded, skimmed and ready for painting
• Optional recessed spotlights wired in while the ceiling is open

Tiled against glass against polycarbonate

Each of the three does one thing well and the other things badly, so the right choice depends on what the room is for.

• Polycarbonate, cheapest and lightest, but noisy in rain, poor in winter and greenhouse hot in summer
• Glass, quiet and bright with self cleaning coatings available, still loses heat upward and needs blinds for summer
• Solid tiled, warm all year and quiet in any weather, with roof windows added where daylight is needed
• Hybrid, a tiled roof with two or three glazed panels, which is what most of our customers actually choose

Building regulations and the practical detail

Changing a conservatory roof to a solid roof is a building regulations matter, not a planning one in most cases, and it is handled as part of the job. The structure has to be shown to carry the load, the thermal performance has to be demonstrated and the work has to be certificated. Any company offering to do it without paperwork is a company to walk away from.

Practically, the room is out of use for three to five days. We strip and cover in a day, build up the roof, then plaster and let it dry. Furniture is moved to the middle and sheeted or, for a small conservatory, moved into the house.

What it does to the rest of the house

One thing owners rarely anticipate is what happens to the room the conservatory opens onto. Once the roof stops bleeding heat, the doors between the conservatory and the house can be left open in winter, and the two spaces start behaving as one room. That is the point at which people stop calling it the conservatory and start calling it the back room, and it is the reason so many of these jobs come to us on a neighbour's recommendation.