Conservatory Heat

Hi
I'm building a conservatory, which will be south facing and in full sun for most of the day. I will of course have good blinds to keep out the worst of the sun. I was thinking of fitting an air conditioning unit to help keep things cool, does anyone know if this is a good idea and will it be worth doing.
Thanks

If it’s South facing & not too late, make sure your cons. has at least 2 sets of French doors in opposing or adjacent sides! Ours faces south, we don’t have blinds but have doors in all 3 sides & when it gets hot we just swing at least 2 of them open. It keeps the heat down nicely & we rarely use the ceiling fan; the remote sensor’s gone up the bucket anyway! I would also advise either an opaque or foil insert roof as thick as you can get; I’ve got 40mm but I believe you can get 50mm now.

An air con unit is a good idea but, depending on the size of your cons, it will cost you a fortune to run; it does have the advantage that you can use it as a heat pump in winter though & next time I would go for one rather than the u/floor heating system weve got. Go for a proper built in unit rather than a small portable which is unlikely to cope; more expensive though & unless you’re a Part P spark, it will have to be professionally installed.

I use an "evaporative cooler" which seems to do an excellent job with the windows open. It only uses about 70 watts and costs about £50. I don't even use blinds and the temperature can reach 45 degrees on a sunny day and the evaporative cooler really works at these temperature especially if you can feed it cold water and/or blocks of ice.

Don't be mistaken into thinking it will reduce the temperature to low 20's though on a sunny day.

(oh and I have a glass roof !)