Thanks very much in advance guys as the decision I need to make will probably be the most significant my wife and I will ever make re our 3 bed semi.
We currently have a single storey lean to extension attached to the side of the house. It measures 2 metres by 20 metres. Its currently our utility room and is accesssed via the kitchen. It has a polycarbonate roof that cant be more than 20-25mm thick (the polycarbonate has got to be 20 years old) and the room is currently either very cold or hot dependent on the time of the year. Luckily it is accessed via the houses original back door so the cold/heat can be kept at bay. HOWEVER the plan is to substantially widen the doorway into the utility room, get rid of the back door and create a single L shaped kitchen. Whatever happens I dont want to keep the polycarbonate and if the general advice is stay away from glass then I will revert back to plan B- a tiled roof with velux windows
I would like to replace the polycarbonate roof with a double glazed glass roof. Ideally I would like the roof to have as few beams as possible and so figured that probably the best cheapest way forward if I go down this route will be to get a wooden frame designed and made and then employ a contractor to provide the glass and fit it.
My questions relate to:
-how cold/hot will this room be if I use decent quality double glazing units? From a bit of research it seems as if you can source units with a U value of around 1.2 but I have no idea what such a value will actually mean in terms of insulation. I appreciate that a glass roof is never going to be as a warm as traditional tiled one but how good will a modern glass roof be at retaining warmth in the winter and keeping the room cool in summer? (perhaps less important if I install a high level thermostatically controlled extractor fan). I dont mind a small increase in heating costs but...
- does anyone have any particular company recommendations re either the glass (company or type) or a complete roofing system. It does seem that you can pay some pretty crazy prices for this kind of look (eg Apropos) but our total budget for the roof would be around the £5-7k mark.
- If no companies, how would anyone suggest might be the best/most cost effective way forward to do this. It would be great to hear of anyone elses experience if they have tackled this type of project
Thanks very much in advance as I have no idea where to start at the mo (as you can probably tell from the above)
We currently have a single storey lean to extension attached to the side of the house. It measures 2 metres by 20 metres. Its currently our utility room and is accesssed via the kitchen. It has a polycarbonate roof that cant be more than 20-25mm thick (the polycarbonate has got to be 20 years old) and the room is currently either very cold or hot dependent on the time of the year. Luckily it is accessed via the houses original back door so the cold/heat can be kept at bay. HOWEVER the plan is to substantially widen the doorway into the utility room, get rid of the back door and create a single L shaped kitchen. Whatever happens I dont want to keep the polycarbonate and if the general advice is stay away from glass then I will revert back to plan B- a tiled roof with velux windows
I would like to replace the polycarbonate roof with a double glazed glass roof. Ideally I would like the roof to have as few beams as possible and so figured that probably the best cheapest way forward if I go down this route will be to get a wooden frame designed and made and then employ a contractor to provide the glass and fit it.
My questions relate to:
-how cold/hot will this room be if I use decent quality double glazing units? From a bit of research it seems as if you can source units with a U value of around 1.2 but I have no idea what such a value will actually mean in terms of insulation. I appreciate that a glass roof is never going to be as a warm as traditional tiled one but how good will a modern glass roof be at retaining warmth in the winter and keeping the room cool in summer? (perhaps less important if I install a high level thermostatically controlled extractor fan). I dont mind a small increase in heating costs but...
- does anyone have any particular company recommendations re either the glass (company or type) or a complete roofing system. It does seem that you can pay some pretty crazy prices for this kind of look (eg Apropos) but our total budget for the roof would be around the £5-7k mark.
- If no companies, how would anyone suggest might be the best/most cost effective way forward to do this. It would be great to hear of anyone elses experience if they have tackled this type of project
Thanks very much in advance as I have no idea where to start at the mo (as you can probably tell from the above)