help-glass roof advice-cold? expensive? do-able?

[matt1098]

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)

 

[Mw Roofline]

Energy efficient windows (Sutton Coldfield) are about to embark on a glass roof for a friend of hours but you will be too far away for them to come.

Once the new layout L shape or whatever it is is done then a cad drawing is created for the roof bars and this the exact spec you will need for your project.

28mm triple glazed sealed units, double low E, gas filled with Swisspacer on the inside and Pilkington active blue on the outside. The bars can't be too spaced out as triple is heavy as fook. To be honest glazing bars are that well made now you could park a car on them but the right ones would need to be specced.

Anyway thats the combo you need for keeping the heat in, you'll have more heat going through a brick wall.

Tiled roof with velux will make it more like a room but glass roof will give you loads of light and he blue tint makes it look nice!

 

[Jaarus]

If you arent in the UK then ignore this post as likely has no relevance at all to you!


We have the same problem as the OP but slightly worse thanks to crazy previous owners!

We have a polycarb 'conservatory' - although it isnt really, its a lean to - what is now midway down our house.
Its a victorian house (1890) and the previous owners for some bizarre reason during an extension out the back, which is an odd shape itself but thats another story altogether! Opted for the connection between old house and new extention to be this 'conservatory' / lean to thing.

VERY hard to explain!

Like yourself its like the artic in there in the winter and like an oven in the summer months.

Unlike you - as I say its midway down our house, connecting the kitchen to the sitting room and with pets etc we cant even keep the internal doors closed so when its cold outside its cold inside. As in seeing breath (no exageration).



Anyway - turns out that a lean-to/conservatory is classed as an 'occasional room' or something so doesnt have to meet the new stringent insulation guidelines for your house - its separate.
So the options we were presented with were either replace roof with new thicker poly carb with insulation inserts inside it OR gut it and rebuild it with a proper insulated tiled roof after getting planning permission to change the function of the space as basically it will now be classed as an extension and need PP wheras a lean-to you can just pop up yourself.